Farewell to Blue Panorama and Ego Airways, there are fewer and fewer Italian airlines
There are only four passenger companies, with Italian AOCs, operating in our country to date: ITA Airways, Neos, Air Dolomiti and Aeroitalia.
Its aircraft, with that funny dark blue nose (as well as engine nacelles and tail, also blue) took hundreds of thousands of Italians on vacation to destinations in the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Indian Ocean. Now, Blue Panorama has officially joined the 'corpses' with which the history of Italian air transportation is studded.
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Flight operations had ceased as early as October 27, 2021, after two very hard years due to the Covid outbreak. Then, on December 15, the Court of Milan had issued a decree of "improcedibility for the arrangement with creditors" permanently shutting down Blue Panorama's engines. Finally, the company's name disappeared from Enac's list regarding companies holding Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) updated as of January 11 and, last May 9, also from the list of companies holding Air Transport Licenses. Point.
It is the end of a story that began in 1998 and lasted almost 25 years, amid ups and downs and a reputation for being a sort of "second-rate Neos" on the leisure flight front. Since 2017 it had been owned by the Uvet Group, led by Luca Patanè, who had dreamed of its rebirth, post-pandemic, in the form of Luke Air. But the two A330-200s (formerly Qatar Airways) painted in the new livery, long seen in the long-stay area of Naples Capodichino airport, never took flight.
Blue Panorama's image, in addition to its vacation image, was basically linked to two types of aircraft, mainly used by its two hubs in Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa: the Boeing 737, of which it operated a total of 32 examples of the -300, -400, -500 and -800 series; and the Boeing 767-300ER, of which 10 examples were in the fleet between 2012 and 2020.
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The year 2023 saw the farewell of another passenger operator, albeit one with a history and scale quite unlike that of Blue Panorama. From the same Enac list of companies holding AOCs and from the list of companies holding air transport licenses, the name of Ego Airways also disappeared, a regional company that had the misfortune of being founded a few months before the Covid outbreak.
Operating from December 2020 with a single Embraer E-190, (today in wetlease for ITA Airways) had developed a national network touching about ten destinations before ceasing operations at the end of 2021. January 2022 Enac had suspended her Air Operator's Certificate and last December, the company had been put into liquidation.
In light of the last two 'funerals', The passenger airlines to date operating in our country (with Italian AOC) are only: ITA Airways, Neos, Air Dolomiti, Sky Alps and Aeroitalia.
June 10 In an earlier version of the article the presence of Sky Alps among the companies operating with Italian AOC had been forgotten, we apologize to readers and the company for the error.
