Alitalia gets a little boost in a transatlantic joint venture with Air france-KLM and Delta Air Lines. (Photo by Mark Lawrence)
Alitalia on Monday joined the Air France-KLM Group and Delta Air Lines as a member of the airline industry’s transatlantic joint venture, the airline said in a statement.
The joint venture created a single, coordinated network for customers flying across the Atlantic, allowing the member airlines to share revenues and costs on their trans-Atlantic routes since its launch in 2009.
The transatlantic network offers almost 250 flights and approximately 55,000 seats each day. The joint venture now will include 20 daily trans-Atlantic flights to five U.S. destinations from Rome and Milan Malpensa airports.
With Alitalia’s addition, the joint venture represents approximately 26 percent of total transatlantic capacity, with annual revenues estimated at more than $10 billion USD.
Rome joins Amsterdam, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York-JFK and Paris-CDG as the core hubs of the joint venture, with additional trans-Atlantic service from Cincinnati, Milan Malpensa, Memphis and Salt Lake City.
Wherever traffic rights permit, the airlines offer customers codeshare service between the United States and the European Union.
The joint venture’s geographic scope includes all flights between North America and Europe, between Amsterdam and India and between North America and Tahiti.
Alitalia’s addition to the joint venture is effective April 1, 2010 as part of a long-term agreement effective until at least March 31, 2022.
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