Airline Name
Air Europe
IATA: PE / ICAO: AEL / Callsign: AIR EUROPE
Country of Origin
Italy
Aircraft Types Used (from those available in WoA)
A320 (A320-200) (9 operated),At ZRH,
B752 (757-200) (7 operated),
B763 (767-300) (13 operated),
Got to include the MAN photo
,
And returning from a charter from SXM to MXP ,
1990s Air Europe UK livery,
And another MAN photo,
B772 (777-200) (2 operated),
At SXM,
Not in-game,
DC10 (Douglas DC-10-30) (1 operated),
Why should this airline be added?
Founded in mid-December 1989, this was the Italian subsidiary of Air Europe a UK holiday charter airline of the 1980s. It was founded 3 years after Air Europa (Spain’s current second International airline, example with this B752) which was very successful and Air Europe wished to replicate that success though the founding of this airline and Air Europe Germany. Sadly, in 1991 due to the financial recession in the UK and severe competition at Gatwick with Dan Air, AirUK and Caledonian and charter airlines like Monarch and Air 2000, Air Europe collasped taking the German subsidiary with it, however, both Air Europe Italy and Air Europa found new owners and investors and continued flying.The airline, now under its own management, purchased 767-300s to expand its long haul operations from MXP, launching many new flights including its first scheduled one to Havana in 1997, moving to a dedicated long haul airline role instead of merely charter. In 1999, it took delivery of its first 777-200, beating Alitalia to being the first Italian operator of the type, followed by in 2000 being purchased by the Volare Group, owner of Volare Airlines of Venice, who moved Air Europe into their long haul operator and focused themselves on medium to short haul route (Though ofc these ovelapped). In 2004, the Volare Group went bump and the it was bought by Alitalia in 2006 (This took longer than expected due to Air One’s blocking of the takeover and the subsequent court cases), who reorganised the group with Volareweb having replaced Volare Airlines in 2004, with Air Europe being kept alive for leisure routes to the likes of the Mauritius and Maldives with its 767s (The 777s ended up going to Air Austral in mid-2003 due to a fall in demand due to 9/11.
In 2008, Alitalia itself went bump and a consortium of investors decided to form “Compagnia Aerea Italiana" (CAI), which was planned to merge with the other bankrupt airline Air One in October 2008, which also included the merging of Air Europe and reducing the operations of Volareweb to the bare minimum to maintain slots at MXP, LIN and FCO to name a couple. In December 2008, Alitalia officially dissolved the airline, with it becoming C.A.I First with a single A320 on the sheet and remaining E170’s from previous Alitalia’s fleet. The reason for this was Alitalia was already working in partnership with Air Italy on its leisure routes and no longer had need for Air Europe.
Going on a bit of a tangent here but this is what the US said regarding the whole Alitalia reorganisation ‘A USA diplomatic cable disclosed in 2011 summarised the operation as follows: “Under the guise of a rather quaint (and distinctly un-EU) desire to maintain the Italian-ness of the company, a group of wealthy Berlusconi cronies was enticed into taking over the healthy portions of Alitalia, leaving its debts to the Italian taxpayers. The rules of bankruptcy were changed in the middle of the game to meet the government’s needs. Berlusconi pulled this one off, but his involvement probably cost the Italian taxpayers a lot of money.”‘ - Copied from wiki (Back when corrupt politicians were at least charming eh).
New Alitalia tried to pretend old Alitalia had nothing to do with them and binned off a majority of the old fleet to try and look new, fresh and modern, whilst also renouncing employee flights and denying old complaints as it wasn’t ‘the same Alitalia’ lol. In 2013, the airline tried to do the same with bankrupt Wind Jet and Blue Panorama but after having to bin slots at FCO and other domestic airports when taking over Wind Jet, it cancelled its plans for Blue Panorama.
Anyway, back to it. It’d be another great addition to Italian aviation and for BRI, as well as providing a sister airline to Air Europa and an optional charter holiday airline for many playable airports across Europe and the majority of the world.
Destinations;
