On March 1st, ITA Airways inaugurated Rome Fiumicino to Miami. The next day, ITA, the successor to long-suffering Alitalia, added Rome-Boston, and Swiss leisure carrier Edelweiss reintroduced Zurich to Tampa with the A340-300.

ITA Airways' offerings

While Miami and Boston are both new for ITA, which stands for Italia Trasporto Aereo, they were long-served by Alitalia. They join New York JFK, which ITA inaugurated last November.

The three routes come ahead of Milan Malpensa-JFK (starting on April 2nd) and Rome-Los Angeles (June 1st). There's no sign of Washington (served by Alitalia May 2019-January 2020) or Chicago (March 2008-September 2019).

Boston is currently 2x weekly but will rise to 5x weekly in April, 6x weekly in May, and 1x daily from June-October, before reducing to 5x weekly from November onwards. Miami, meanwhile, is now 3x weekly and will increase up to 5x weekly in April and 1x daily from June, continuing at that frequency through the winter. The current schedules are as follows, with all times local:

  • Rome-Boston: Wednesday, Saturday; AZ614, 10:20-14:00
  • Boston-Rome: Wednesday, Saturday; AZ615, 17:10-07:00+1
  • Rome-Miami: Tuesday, Friday, Sunday; AZ630, 11:00-17:40
  • Miami-Rome: Tuesday, Friday, Sunday; AZ631, 20:40-11:30+1

Throwback: Alitalia's 2019 US network

In pre-pandemic 2019, Alitalia had seven US routes, as detailed below by passengers and seat load factor (SLF) using the DOT's T-100 data:

  • Rome-JFK: 470,699 round-trip passengers; 85.9% SLF
  • Rome-Miami: 153,460; 85.1%
  • Milan-JFK: 141,657; 80.2%
  • Rome-Los Angeles: 127,402; 88.0%
  • Rome-Boston: 120,090; 84.1%
  • Rome-Washington: 56,265; 72.3%
  • Rome-Chicago: 51,960; 84.2%

Alitalia carried over 1.1 million passengers to/from the US in 2019. Despite Rome's southern position in Europe, booking data indicates that the majority of passengers transited the Italian capital, primarily to/from other destinations in Italy along with Israel, Albania, and Greece.

Boston-Rome ITA
Celebrating the launch at Boston were (from left to right) Mark Sullivan, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment; Federica Sereni, Consul General of Italy in Boston; Pierfrancesco Carino, ITA Airways Vice President, International Sales; and Todd Smith, Massport Director of Aviation Operations. Photo: Massport.
 

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Edelweiss is back in Tampa

After a two-year absence, Edelweiss is back in Tampa. The 4,878-mile (7,851km) link is the carrier's first US route to resume since the pandemic struck, with its second (Las Vegas) to recommence on March 28th. The Florida service operates on Wednesdays and Fridays and has the following schedule, with all times local:

  • Zurich-Tampa: 13:15-18:15
  • Tampa-Zurich: 19:55-11:00+1

It has served Tampa since 2012

According to the DOT, Edelweiss has served Tampa since May 2012, with 29,556 passengers carried in 2019. It was the airline's second-largest of five US routes, beaten by Las Vegas (40,636) but ahead of Orlando (14,152), Denver (11,829), and San Diego (7,529). Denver will resume on June 13th, but there's no sign of Orlando or San Diego.

Have you flown, or do you plan to fly, ITA? Let us know in the comments.