Alitalia Express

Alitalia Express S.p.A. was a regional airline based in Rome, Italy and a wholly owned subsidiary of Alitalia. It operated regional scheduled services and charter flights on behalf of Alitalia. Its main bases were Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport, Rome, and Malpensa International Airport, Milan. Since the Alitalia/Air One merger, Alitalia Express was changed into CAI-First and is used to operate flights on behalf of Alitalia at Milan Linate Airport

History

The airline was established and started operations on 1 October 1997. It was founded from the defunct Avianova. It had 710 employees by 2007. In March 2003 it was reported that Alitalia was considering taking over Minerva Airlines which had suspended flight operations and transferring the turboprop fleet of Alitalia Express to Minerva Airlines. This did not happen and in September 2004 Alitalia announced plans to acquire twelve additional Embraer E-170 aircraft for Alitalia Express. This did not happen, either.

Air One and Alitalia merger

In December 2008, Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) took over Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane and Air One merging the two companies together to create the "new Alitalia". With the take over, the CAI also received Alitalia Express and Air One CityLiner merging the latter into Alitalia as well. At 11 May 2010, it is unknown what the CAI will do with Alitalia......
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