Alitalia is with Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines
Rome,
July 5, 2010 - Alitalia, the largest Italian airline, today joined the
Air France-KLM (OTC: AFLYY) and Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) as a member
of major joint venture in transatlantic aviation. Launched
in 2009, the joint venture provides customers voyage across the
Atlantic in a single coordinated network allows companies and partners
sharing costs and revenues of its transatlantic routes.
Thanks
to the joint venture between four carriers, passengers now have
privileged access to the largest transatlantic network in the world,
with nearly 250 flights and 55,000 seats offered per day and now
include 20 daily flights between five airports in the United States and
airports Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa. With
the addition of Alitalia, the joint venture shall deliver approximately
26% of all transatlantic capacity, with annual revenues estimated at
over 10 billion dollars.
Rome
joins as Amsterdam, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York-JFK and
Paris-CDG as a main hub of the joint venture, with more transatlantic
routes from Cincinnati, Milan Malpensa, Memphis and Salt Lake City. Wherever
traffic rights allow the companies offer codeshare connections between
the U.S. and the European Union, and in many cases beyond, creating a
single network with links between European and U.S. airports perfectly
integrated between the four airlines.
The
geographical scope of the joint venture includes all flights between
North America and Europe, between Amsterdam and India, and between
North America and Tahiti.
"Today marks an important stage of the development plan for Alitalia," said Rocco Sabelli, chief executive of Alitalia. "The transatlantic traffic is the most strategic and competitive markets. We
are proud to partner with leading airlines in the world in joint
ventures in which the entire industry to see how a reference model. This
achievement recognizes the value of the results achieved so far by
Alitalia and creates additional opportunities for our industrial and
commercial growth. "
"Delta's
partnership with leading European airlines has been a great success and
enabled us to add new destinations and new benefits for customers
across the U.S. and Europe," said Delta CEO Richard Anderson. "The
addition of Alitalia to our joint venture will boost our ability to
optimize resources, protect revenues and create value for our employees
and our shareholders."
"The
transatlantic joint venture has been strengthened with the arrival of
Alitalia, which makes the Italian market, the third in Europe, provided
it with access to Rome Fiumicino hub," said Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, CEO
of Air France-KLM . "The
Italian company, a member of SkyTeam, a strategic partner of Air
France-KLM, which already has joint venture agreements on links Italy
and France-Italy-Holland. Therefore natural that this successful partnership continues with the
participation of Alitalia transatlantic joint venture. "
"The
addition of Alitalia is an important step for joint ventures and
strengthen the position of other partners on the important Italian
market," said Peter Hartman, President and CEO of KLM. "Our
customers can now choose from several access points in the United
States as in Europe, via Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Charles de Gaulle
Airport and Rome Fiumicino."
The governance of the joint venture will be shared equally between Alitalia, Air France-KLM Group and Delta. Representatives
of Alitalia will participate from the start to the 11 working groups of
the JV set up to implement and manage the agreement in the following
areas: network, revenue management, sales, product, frequent flyer,
advertising / brand, cargo operations, information technology,
communication and finance. Alitalia will also participate in all initiatives of joint ventures, including joint sales contracts launched in January 2009.
The
participation of Alitalia to the joint venture shall take effect from 1
April 2010 and is part of a long-term agreement valid until at least
March 31, 2022.
Cooperation
between Air France, KLM and Delta began in 1997 when KLM has signed a
joint venture agreement with Northwest Airlines. Delta
merged with Northwest in 2008, has just signed a joint venture
agreement with Air France in 2007, after eight years of transatlantic
cooperation activities. In 2009, both joint ventures have been consolidated as a result of mergers Delta-Northwest and Air France-KLM.
The
alliance, which enjoys the "Trans-Atlantic antitrust immunity"
recognized by American and European governments, has already produced
many benefits for consumers were launched dozens of new routes
including the first Delta connection between Atlanta and
London-Heathrow Minneapolis-St.Paul and the flight and New York-JFK. New direct services were also launched in cities like Amsterdam and Portland, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City and Paris and Paris