Itavia

The beginning and the 60s

The company was founded on 13 October 1958, under the name Società di Navigazione Aerea Itavia, with its operational base at Rome-Urbe airport. Operations began in July 1959 with a de Havilland DH.104 Dove, on a flight to Rimini, during summer months. In 1960, two routes were added: Rome-Pecara and Siena-Genoa. Six de Havilland DH.114 Heron aircraft entered the fleet in the following year.^[2][3] In fact the founders' intentions were to establish a west-east Rome-Pescara connection (due to a very slow railway line and a highway still far from being completed).

On 14 October 1960, a Heron flying from Rome to Genoa crashed into the highest mountain on the island of Elba. This incident caused the interruption of services, which resumed only in May 1962 under the new name Aerolinee Itavia and with a small fleet of four Douglas DC-3s.^[4] Furthermore, the company's base of operations was moved to Rome Ciampino Airport. Thanks to DC 3, the network quickly expanded to include the Rome-Forlì, Rome-Crotone, and Rome-Bari-Foggia routes. Then the airports of Ancona and Bologna were connected. Later, Milan-Linate, again Pescara and Treviso.

By 1963 DC-3s started being replaced by the more modern British Handley Page Dart Herald turboprops.^[5] The Herald gradually allowed the network to add other airports, such as Turin. In addition to regular connections, these aircraft also allowed the launch of a stable charter business.^[6] Unfortunately, the economic results were not positive, with significant losses and operations being interrupted from early 1965 to August. The time had come for a greater entrepreneurial push that the shareholders were unable to guarantee. In spring Aldo Davanzali, an entrepreneur with interests in construction, hotel and spa businesses, and maritime and port companies, gained full control of the company and remained at its helm until the end. The Heralds remained in service until 1973.

The introduction of jetliners occurred in May 1969, when a Fokker F28 was leased and immediately flown on the Bologna-Turin-Geneva and Milan-Basel routes. The results were satisfactory, and three were ordered, the first of which was delivered at the end of the year. the jetliner was firstly deployed on the already consolidated Bologna, Turin, and Geneva routes.^[7]

The 70s

The first of the four Douglas DC-9-15s bought arrived at the end of 1971. These were aircraft previously used by a couple of U.S.A. domestic airlines but completely refurbished by the manufacturer. Thanks to the gradual retirement of the Heralds, by the mid-1970s Itavia had an entirely jet fleet, five DC 9s and seven F28s. In 1972, Itavia was authorized to operate from Bergamo's Orio al Serio airport, promoting it as an alternative to Milan-Linate: three routes to Cagliari, Catania, and Rome were launched. On that same year, the registered office was moved to the Calabrian city of Catanzaro to benefit from tax breaks and incentives provided for companies operating in the South. The administrative headquarters and general management were relocated to Via Sicilia in Rome.

Despite its challenging position as a domestic competitor to the Alitalia-ATI duopoly, Itavia achieved a significant market share on domestic air routes.^[8] This activity was augmented during the high season by several European routes and significant charter flight activity. During these years, the company's workforce grew to over a thousand. In the following years other DC-9 versions operated were the Douglas DC-9-21, Douglas DC-9-31, Douglas DC-9-33 and Douglas DC-9-51. A total of 14 F28s and 11 DC-9s were used throughout its history.

The 80s marked the end

The airline's operations continued regularly without any significant incidents until 27 June 1980, when one of its DC-9s, operating Flight IH 870 from Bologna to Palermo, crashed under mysterious circumstances off the coast of Ustica island, in the lower Tyrrhenian Sea. All 81 people on board lost their lives. After the disaster, the airline was accused of poor maintenance standards and failure to comply with safety regulations, with structural collapse being the suspected cause of the disaster, a theory later ruled out by subsequent investigations and rulings. Even before the accident, Itavia was heavily in debt, with some of its aircraft mortgaged. The disaster simply accelerated the end of operations: scheduled flights were immediately suspended, and in January 1981, the Italian Transport Minister revoked the flight license (AOC). On 14 April 1981, the company was declared insolvent and on the following 31 July the Ministry of Industry, in agreement with the Ministry of the Treasury, placed the company into extraordinary administration: the fleet and flight personnel were rescued and absorbed by Aermediterranea (a company 55% owned by Alitalia and 45% by ATI).

Legal disputes

On 31 March 1981 the company sued the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of the Interior for negligence alleging that the plane crash triggered the economic and financial crisis that led to the bankruptcy. According to Itavia, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Transport failed to monitor, supervise, and ensure the safety of Italian airspace, while the Ministry of the Interior failed to prevent terrorism, spreading the idea of a bomb on board.

The Court of Rome ordered the defendant ministries to pay damages of €uros 108.07 million plus statutory interest (from 31 December 2000) and legal costs totaling €uros 943,740. On 13 March 2007, the First Civil Section of the Rome Court of Appeals, acquitted the ministries. On 11 February 2009, the Third Civil Section of the Court of Cassation (= supreme court) ordered the rehearing of the appeal proceedings.

In January 2013, in its first final civil judgment ordering compensation, the Court of Cassation confirmed that the disaster was caused by a missile and not an explosion inside the DC9. It therefore ordered the Italian State to compensate the victims' families for failing to ensure the safety of the airspace with adequate civilian and military radar monitoring. This was the first procedural finding after the criminal proceedings came to nothing.

However, since Itavia's innocence in the accident had been established in the civil proceedings (the hypothesis of structural failure was definitively dismissed), the ruling, and especially a page of the "Minority Report" of the members of the Stragi (= massacres) Commission, gave a less than favorable assessment of Itavia's financial and economic management. It was noted, however, that no judicial investigations had ever been opened into allegations of crime and/or civil liability against the air carrier and its directors.

On 22 October 2013, the Court of Cassation, upholding the appeal of Aldo Davanzali's heirs, declared the theory of a missile fired by an unknown aircraft "now established" in case law. A new civil trial was therefore necessary to assess the liability of the Ministries of Defense and Transport, as the misdirection of the investigation had been "definitively established." The version of the downing by a missile was reiterated in April 2015 by the Palermo Court and Prosecutor's office.

In May 2018, the Court of Cassation ruled that the Ministries of Infrastructure and Defense were required to compensate the former airline that went bankrupt. The main reason for the ruling was "Failure to monitor and supervise the complex and dangerous situation that arose in the skies above Ustica."

Aldo Davanzali legacy

In the years following the accident, Aldo Davanzali devoted all his resources to defending Itavia from accusations of poor aircraft maintenance. He died in May 2005, at the age of 83, suffering from Parkinson's disease and in dire financial straits. The industrialist left a profound mark in Ancona, his adopted city and the headquarter of many of his businesses. He is still remembered with affection and regret. His daughter attempted to establish a memorial dedicated to him and to involve several entrepreneurs in reconstituting a "successor" airline.^[9] None of this has yet happened.