The first ITA Airways Airbus A350-900 in its blue livery recently took off on its maiden test flight. As it edges from the test flights towards delivery, what plans does the airline have for the new aircraft for the summer?
ITA Airways Airbus A350-900 first take off, Image Airbus via Twitter.
The aircraft made its first flight in company colours on the 21st of April.
As for operations, the airline plans to base the aircraft at its Rome Fiumicino hub and operate the aircraft to Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Tokyo.
The deployment of the type will be in June – although the exact first deployment has not been decided yet.
The introduction of the Airbus A350 in the ITA Airways fleet represents an important step towards sustainability and is in line with the objectives of the international “Fit for 55” package, whose objectives are shared by ITA Airways.
As usual, there’s a lot to prepare before delivery to the airline.
The A350-900 will be powered by Rolls Royce Trent XWB engines – with the promise of a 25% reduction in fuel composition, as well as lower CO2 emissions per seat, compared with previous generation aircraft.
Developing the fleet and network
ITA Airways has mostly kept the Airbus fleet it inherited from Alitalia, with the airline operating the Airbus A319. Airbus A320 and Airbus A330-200, as well as some wet leased Embraer E190 for certain city routes.
There is a big fleet transformation ahead, as the airline takes delivery of Airbus A220-100, Airbus A220-300 Airbus A320neo, Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330-900neo and further Airbus A350-900 (a total of eight).
As ITA Airways continues to find its place in the aviation world, there’s a lot of work that the airline could find for its aircraft as it works out its longer-term future.
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When is the Alitalia name returning
Still not a fan of that livery – the blue is actually fine, it’s just the Italian flag motif on the tail and engines feels…forced, for lack of a better word. It’s not a requirement of liveries that they contain the national colours (see Lufthansa, for example.)