Delta and ITA to Sicily

Delta and ITA are currently part of the SkyTeam alliance. BUT the Italian government is trying to sell ITA. The government was in exclusive negotiations with a consortium that includes Delta, Air France-KLM and a US investment firm. A few days ago, though, the Italian government opened up talks with other interested entities, primarily Lufthansa, which is a part of Star Alliance. A Lufthansa purchase of ITA would end Delta's association with ITA. It appears the uncertainty of ITA's future has resulted in Delta pulling ITA flights from its website for the spring (though flights for December and January are still showing up).

Dave,
Thanks for responding. That makes sense but raises an even bigger issue for us flying out of Miami. ITA has by far the best routing to Sicily for us. But being up for sale makes me wonder whether buying tickets on it is very good idea.

Beth

Barring some crazy worldwide epidemic (like those things happen), I don't think ITA is going anywhere in the near future. The Italian government owns a majority share and wants to get (mostly) out of the airline business -- the government still plans to hang on to a piece of the airline.

Probably not. Guess I was just thinking about Air Italy and Norwegian Air both which have disappeared in last couple of years.

Norwegian is still around 🙂. It just discontinued transatlantic flights.

We were able to book ITA flight on Delta from Rome to JFK in March. First I’ve heard about airline sale issue and hope that doesn’t affect our flight.