Aeroitalia, Italy’s latest airline startup, announced today, in Palermo, its program for flights to and from Sicily, the country’s southernmost region, for 2023. The announcement was made by the airline’s management in d’Orléans Palace, house of the Sicilian Region presidency, alongside regional authorities.
The airline will launch flights connecting four cities in the region Catania, Lampedusa, Palermo and Trapani to three cities in the mainland; Bergamo (the airport also serves the Milan region), Forlì and Rome/Fiumicino.
Most routes will run with less-than-daily frequencies, except for the Palermo-Rome connection which, starting in June 1st, will be online with three daily frequencies in each direction. The Catania-Rome flight will have the same frequency, starting in October — after Summer season.
All routes are already for sale in Aeroitalia’s sales channels.
Aeroitalia-Regione SicilianaThe announcement was an answer, from the Region’s administration, to claims that incumbent airlines had set up a «price cartel» between Sicily and mainland Italy.
Such allegations were launched last December by Codacon Sicilia, an Italian consumer’s association in the run-up to the Holidays peak travel season, and were promptly taken by Sicilian authorities for further investigation.
The two main targets of accusations, ITA Airways and Ryanair, both denied profusely the accusation through their bosses. ITA’s Fabio Lazzerini, in an event in Catania last December; Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary in a January presentation in Milan («prices to/from Sicily ‘higher’ in Christmas than afterward — don’t tell me!!», said his PowerPoint presentation).
For Aeroitalia’s part, the airline’s CEO, Gaetano Intrieri, pledged in the Palermo conference to keep fares for the new routes between EUR29.90 and EUR150, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
The Italian startup, meanwhile, will face stiff competition in the majority of the routes, according to schedule data powered by Cirium’s Diio Mi application. The routes from Forlì are the only ones without any direct competitors, although it could be argued that there is overlap with nearby Bologna Airport — from which Ryanair is a major player.
For the Rome/Fiumicino routes, meanwhile, direct competition will be the sharpest. While Aeroitalia will serve each with three daily operations, both ITA Airways and Ryanair serve the city pairs with over six daily flights each.
Sicilian authorities, however, believe the new capacity will help drive fares down, improving accessibility both for tourists and residents who need to access the mainland.
Aeroitalia’s announcement «is an answer to Sicilians and tourists who want to get to our land, to avoid absurd and indecorous bloodletting [fares] to which they have been subjected», stated Sicily’s region President, Renato Schifani, in a video provided by the regional government to the media.
«We will file an appeal with the anti-trust [bodies], come Easter, should the two companies [ITA Airways and Ryanair, ed.] keep unacceptable and scandalous prices».
