Italy’s ITA Airways Takes Delivery Of First Airbus A350

This is very exciting. Italy's new national airline, ITA Airways, just took delivery of its first A350. We will finally get to see what the new cabins look like.

Basics of ITA’s Airbus A350s

The fleet strategy was revealed in December of 2021. The airline plans to lease A350s and ordered A320s, A320s, and A330s. It remains to be seen how long it will take for ITA to take delivery of up to 13 A350-900 aircraft.

ALAFCO delivered the first of four A350-900s to ITA Airways, which is cool. The planes will be leased by ITA Airways for a period of 12 years, though I think that could be extended in the event of insolvency.

The four A350-900s were supposed to fly for Chinese carrier Hainan Airlines, but the airline has been having serious financial issues, so the plane ended up at ITA Airways.

This plane has not flown for an airline before, but it was produced in November of last year and has been around for three years. Even though it was having financial issues, Hainan was unable to pay for the new jets.

I was skeptical of the livery at first, but I think it looks really cool on the A350. Is it me?

ITA Airbus A350 interiors

It looks like ITA Airways hasn't done much to modify the interiors compared to what was planned for Hainan Airlines, and I would consider that to be a good thing. The A350s will have a total of 334 seats, including 33 business class seats and 301 economy class seats. More specifically:

• Business class will consists of reverse herringbone seats in a 1-2-1 configuration
• There will be no premium economy cabin; while ITA hopes to have premium economy in the long run, that’s not happening for now, since the focus was on minimizing costs and getting these planes into service as quickly as possible
• Economy class will consist of pretty standard seats in a 3-3-3 configuration

The new business class is an improvement over anything that Alitalia or ITA has offered before. The cabin looks bland, but there are some modifications to the finishes, like the red shoulder straps in business class.