As Etihad, based in the UAE failed in its bid to claim Italian and potentially the European Aviation market, Qatar has made a drastic move to invest and re-brand Meridiana as Air Italy to claim the failures of Etihad backed Al Italia. Is Qatar getting revenge for the political blockade imposed on them through not military presence, but dominant presence in the global aviation industry – and is this their first move in pursuing it?
A visual of what Air Italy’s brand identity will be perceived as on the Boeing 737 Max that will start it’s deliveries from Boeing in the fourth quarter of 2018
Meridiana Airlines wasn’t known as a glamorous airline but perceived as one which would fail sooner than an airline should. However, due to the new ambitions of Merdiana’s strategic re-shuffle, it had the opportunity to gain the interest of Qatar Airways (who have a 49% stake in Air Italy) with the other 51% stake being owned by Alisarda.
As Alitalia goes down a downward spiral as Etihad injects money into the carrier, Qatar Airways CEO saw Akbar Al Baker has seen it as an opening in the Italian market to bring an airline like Air Italy into the competition, and he isn’t just saying that to insure Qatar Airways has a confident stance out of the ME3 carriers – to insure the opportunity is taken, Qatar Airways has started to inject finances within the millions into Ai Italy, re-vitalizing the Air Italy fleet of 8 737’s and 3 767’s into a 50 aircraft fleet by 2022 consisting of 20 737-8s (which will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2018) from Qatar’s Boeing orders including some of its 787s and a transfer of Qatar A330-200s to Air Italy as soon as Qatar replenishes its a330 fleet with the 787.
Air Italy conference in Milan earlier
This has all happened in a matter of months, since Qatar Airways announced in September 2017 that they would be placing a 49% stake into Air Italy, they were serious about dominating the Italian aviation market.
But, is it only a business opportunity that Qatar Airways had risked venturing into or is it Qatar Airways signalling a proxy war in Italy against the Arab countries that had put a political blockade against Qatar in 2017. However, this isn’t the usual proxy war we see in our times with military presence, but, with Qatar using one of its most powerful weapons, the aviation market. Could Italy be the start of Qatar Airway’s ambition to dominate the global market starting with Europe? Only time will tell.