ITA Airways: Not a Real SkyTeam Member?

Italy’s flag carrier ITA Airways joined the SkyTeam alliance in October 2021. But more than a year after it officially joined the alliance, most other SkyTeam airlines still don’t recognise ITA Airways as a partner airline.

You still cannot earn or redeem ITA Airways Volare points with most other SkyTeam airlines, and you cannot use points or miles with any other SkyTeam airline to book an ITA Airways flight.

How can ITA Airways be a fully-fledged SkyTeam member when most of the usual SkyTeam benefits are not honoured?

A brief history of ITA Airways and its SkyTeam membership

ITA Airways was created on 15 October 2021 out of the ghost of its predecessor Alitalia. Due to various European regulations, the bankrupt Alitalia needed to rebrand and ITA Airways was founded as its replacement.

Alitalia had been a long-standing member of SkyTeam, one of the three major global alliances alongside Oneworld and Star Alliance. Other SkyTeam members include Delta, Air France, KLM, Korean Air, China Eastern, Garuda Indonesia and Vietnam Airlines.

When Alitalia ceased operations, its SkyTeam membership did not automatically transfer to ITA Airways. But its successor was formally announced as a new SkyTeam member just two weeks later.

Since then, ITA Airways’ Volare frequent flyer program has offered numerous status match promotions. Many people, including myself, took advantage of these offers with the reasonable expectation that this status would afford benefits when flying with ITA Airways and across the SkyTeam alliance. After all, that’s the whole point of being part of an alliance.

My Volare Club Premium membership card even has a SkyTeam Elite Plus logo on it:

To be clear, a status match is a generous offer and one I am grateful for. But the whole point of a status match is to win the business of potentially loyal customers in the long-term. Based on my experience with the Volare program so far, ITA Airways has failed to do this.

ITA Airways so far has only one SkyTeam partner airline

For over a year, ITA Airways was using the SkyTeam logo heavily in its branding without actually having a single partner in the alliance. Then, in November 2022, the airline announced its first airline partnership with SkyTeam’s Korean Air.

“Since ITA Airways officially joined SkyTeam, we have been working continuously with all partner carriers to ensure that frequent flyers enjoy the benefits and advantages of the Alliance,” Volare CEO Emiliana Limosani said in November 2022.

“All services in our Volare program clubs will soon be extended to airlines in this network, giving our members access to more than 1,000 destinations and services worldwide. Likewise, all SkyTeam members will also have access to points accrual.”

What’s the current situation?

To find out exactly what’s going on, I recently flew with ITA Airways from the airline’s hub airports in Milan and Rome.

Operationally, the airline was fine. My flights ran on time, my Volare priority benefits were honoured and the airline’s lounges were quite pleasant. So far, so good.

If I’d had status with another SkyTeam member airline, ITA Airways informs me that they would have also honoured those Sky Priority benefits when flying with them.

However, when booking a ticket, the ITA Airways website only gives you the option to provide a frequent flyer number with Volare, Korean Air SkyPass, Flying Blue or Delta SkyMiles. Furthermore, the website warns that it’s not currently possible to accrue points with the SkyMiles or Flying Blue programs.

When flying with ITA Airways, I couldn’t help noticing many references to SkyTeam – at the airport, on my boarding pass and on the plane. After take-off, the flight attendant’s announcement said “On behalf of ITA Airways, a partner of SkyTeam, I would like to welcome you on board”. There was a second mention of SkyTeam in the landing announcement.

I accrued Volare points for my flights. As far as I can see, the only ways to use these are for a Cash&Points ticket on an ITA Airways flight, seat selection on an ITA Airways flight, or by transferring them to Accor ALL or Best Western Rewards. There is currently no possibility to redeem these points on other SkyTeam airlines.

Flying with other SkyTeam airlines

Other than Korean Air, most SkyTeam airlines are still not honouring any SkyTeam Elite or Elite Plus benefits of Volare members. It is also not yet possible to earn Volare points with other SkyTeam airlines.

It seems that some individual SkyTeam airlines such as China Airlines have at least set up workarounds to honour Volare status, but this is not seamless in any way.

You also still cannot even redeem Korean Air Skypass miles for ITA Airways flights yet, let alone other SkyTeam currencies.

Will this be fixed soon?

Australian Frequent Flyer invited ITA Airways to comment.

An ITA Airways spokesperson issued the following statement:

Since ITA Airways officially joined SkyTeam, we have been working continuously with all partner carriers to ensure that frequent flyers enjoy the benefits and advantages of the alliance. 

ITA Airways recognizes Elite and Elite Plus members of the Alliance, offering them dedicated services. Similarly, several benefits are being made available to Volare customers travelling on a growing number of partner carriers, including Sky Priority benefits.  

In terms of reciprocal earn and burn of miles/points, a first step has been accomplished with Korean Air as the front-runner of the process, and we are constantly working with our partners to reach the goal of a full integration.

It’s perhaps worth noting that LoyaltyLobby already flagged this issue in April 2022. SkyTeam told them at the time that ITA Airways status recognition by other alliance members, as well as reciprocal earning and burning of points, would be rolled out later that year. That hasn’t really happened.

This is not how alliance membership is supposed to work

It is normal for there to be a few teething problems after an airline joins an alliance, but this is unprecedented.

The bulk of the integration work normally gets done before the airline officially joins the alliance. For this work still to be nowhere near completed 16 months later is not normal at all.

Admittedly, ITA Airways is an unusual case because it started its life as a reincarnation of Alitalia. It also seems that none of Alitalia’s systems or agreements relating to SkyTeam were carried over, meaning the airline had to start over from scratch. This does take time, and I’m sure a lot of work has been happening in the background.

BUT: This being the case, ITA Airways should not advertise itself as a SkyTeam member until the work is completed. For the airline to continue to use the SkyTeam logo so prominently at this point verges on misleading, because most of the key SkyTeam benefits are not yet available.

Virgin Atlantic will join SkyTeam next month

With Virgin Atlantic joining the SkyTeam alliance on 2 March 2023, it begs the question of whether such a lack of integration is what SkyTeam frequent flyers can now expect as standard.

Virgin Atlantic’s entry into SkyTeam is a promising development for Australian frequent flyers, so let’s hope not!

We invited SkyTeam to comment, but they did not respond to our invitation.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.