ITA Airways announced a new codeshare agreement with Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras, allowing access to eight Brazilian cities for the Italian airline’s customers.
The Italian airline has been progressively recovering its codeshare agreements as it adds new destinations after replacing the defunct Alitalia. It currently has such agreements with Aerolineas Argentinas, airBaltic, Air Europa, Air France, Air Malta, Air Serbia, Delta Air Lines, KLM, Etihad Airways, Neos and others.
The agreement with Azul, which comes into effect on June 10, is already available on the company’s official channels. The benefits and convenience of a codeshare ticket for customers will include check-in and baggage in transit.
Thanks to this codeshare agreement, ITA Airways will place its «AZ» code on Azul-operated domestic flights in eight strategic domestic markets: Belém (BEL), Cuiabá (CGB), Rio de Janeiro/Santos Dumont (SDU), Porto Alegre (POA), Recife (REC), Juazeiro do Norte (JDO), Belo Horizonte/Confins (CNF) and Curitiba (CWB).
ITA Airways inaugurated its South American operations by adding São Paulo and Buenos Aires/Ezeiza in the first week of June. Both markets have always been favorite destinations for Italian vacations and have the largest population of Italian origin, as well as an important flow of business and cargo traffic.
Data obtained by Aviacionline through the Ente Nazionale Per L’Aviazione (ENAC) indicates that, in 2019, the route between São Paulo (GRU) and Rome (FCO) was the main Latin American destination at Fiumicino Airport (FCO), where 443,974 passengers were mobilized.
In contrast, Buenos Aires/Ezeiza mobilized 355,630 passengers in 2019, being Fiumicino’s second most relevant Latin American route.