Alpi Eagles

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Alpi Eagles
IATA
E8		 ICAO
ELG		 Callsign
ALPI EAGLES
Founded 1979
Hubs Marco Polo International AirportNapoli
Fleet size 10
Destinations
Headquarters Italy
Key people Paolo Sinigalia
Website: http://www.alpieagles.com/
An Alpi Eagles Fokker F100
An Alpi Eagles Fokker F100

Alpi Eagles SpA was an airline based in Italy. It was a privately owned regional airline operating scheduled passenger services linking 15 domestic destinations, as well as international services to Albania, Czech Republic, France, Romania, Russia, Spain and Ukraine. Its main base is Marco Polo International Airport), Venice.[1]

Contents

[edit] History

The company was established in 1979 as an aerobatic team and later diversified into the executive transport market. In May 1996, Alpi Eagles started scheduled passenger services from Venice. It is owned by Interbanca, Ithifly-Veneto Svillippo and Titano-Airontours.[1]. Majority of the shares were purchased by Paolo Sinigalia, owner of the Simod shoe factory in Padova, Italy. The company was doing very well and was one of the most prospective airlines in Italy in the period between 2002-2006. However, many management decisions had indirectly caused a lot of delayed flights during years 2006-2007.

One of the bad decisions was to "cut" the scheduled block times (scheduled time from engine start to engine shut down), probably to save on pilot salaries, because the pilots were paid based on their block time. A lot of flights were delayed and then the management decided to cut the scheduled turn over times. This was all probably too much for the old Fokker 100 fleet with a lot of problems and the maintenance couldn't get the airplanes fixed on time, so even more flights were delayed with 4 hour delays being everyday scene at Venice and Naples airports. Passengers slowly reverted to Air One Cityliner despite prefering to fly AlpiEagles airplanes for comfort. The most experienced pilots started to leave the company which was now faced with a new problem; lack of pilots. Now a lot of flights had to be delayed or even canceled due to lack of personnel, crew rest periods etc. More passengers turned to Air One Cityliner.

In September 2007 ENAC, the Italian Civil Aviation Authority, informed airpassengers that Alpi Eagles license was under investigation, due to insufficient financial resources. Licence to operate was actually suspended by the Italian Authority on 4th October, 2007. After legal action, a provisional license was issued by ENAC valid until 31th December, 2007, but in December 2007 Alpi Eagles was definitely forbidden to operate by ENAC starting 1st January, 2008.

[edit] Fleet

I-ALPL, I-ALPX, I-ALPZ, I-ALPS, I-ELGF, I-ALPK, F-HALP, I-ALPW

[edit] Services

Alpi Eagles suspended all its flights starting January 3, 2008 and used to operate flights to the following cities as of October 2006:[citation needed]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Directory: World Airlines", Flight International, 2007-03-27, pp. 73-74. 
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Airlines of Italy