C.A.I. First S.p.A. was an Italian airline operating flights for its parent company,

Alitalia Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A., operating as Alitalia (), was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. ...

, to preserve slots at Milan Linate Airport. For this reason Alitalia when merged with Air One didn't close C.A.I. First, which at that time still operated as Alitalia Express. It used to have bases at

Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport Leonardo da Vinci Rome Fiumicino Airport () is an international airport in Fiumicino, Italy, serving Rome. It is the busiest airport in the country, the eighth-busiest airport in Europe and the world's 39th-busiest airport with over 49.2&nb ...

in Rome and

Malpensa Airport Milan Malpensa Airport "Silvio Berlusconi" is an international airport in Ferno, in the Province of Varese, Lombardy, Italy. It is the largest airport in northern Italy, serving Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria, as well as the Swiss canton of Ti ...

in Milan. C.A.I. First was dissolved and merged into Alitalia mainline by February 2015. The name ''C.A.I. First'' was only a legal name and wasn't used in public, all of its flights were branded as ''Alitalia''.

History

Early years

The airline was established as a subsidiary of

and started operations on 1 October 1997. It was founded from the defunct Avianova. It was announced that Minerva Airlines would be acquired by Alitalia in March 2003 and that Alitalia Express's fleet would be transferred, but the plan did not go through.

Air One and Alitalia merger

In December 2008, Compagnia Aerea Italiana (C.A.I.) took over

Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A., operating as Alitalia (), was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. ...

and Air One, merging the two companies together to create the "new

". With the take over, CAI also received Alitalia Express and Air One CityLiner. The Alitalia Express brand has been phased out and the regional arm of Alitalia is now Alitalia CityLiner by rebranding Air One CityLiner. The last fleet of Alitalia Express, 10

Embraer 170 The Embraer E-Jet family is a series of four-abreast, narrow-body, short- to medium-range, twin-engined jet airliners designed and produced by Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer. The E-Jet was designed to complement Embraer’s earlier ...

, was completely phased out by March 2013. Only one

Airbus A320-200 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first membe ...

(EI-DSC) from mainline Alitalia was moved in the fleet to preserve the slots. The same solution had been used with C.A.I. Second which used to be ''Volareweb.com''. On 6 February 2015, the airline was dissolved and its operations integrated into Alitalia mainline.

Fleet

Prior to its shutdown in February 2015, the fleet consisted of the following aircraft:

Fleet history

Over the years, Alitalia Express has operated the following aircraft types:

References

External links

{{SkyTeam Airlines established in 1997 Airlines disestablished in 2015 Alitalia Defunct airlines of Italy Italian companies established in 1997 Italian companies disestablished in 2015 Former SkyTeam affiliate members