I dont have link as its a travel agent advisory, but AZ has announced it will terminate service to Beijing at the end of March citing "low profitability and unfavorable slot timings."
Additionally, Mexico City was suspended last week but will resume for Summer 2018 and operate "seasonally" per advisory.

Both markets were only recently resumed in 2016, so obviously they have not been able to stand on their feet yet.

Pretty sure the Chinese airlines will snap up any capacity that's needed.

Pretty bad that stopped even before summer season. Not a good sign.

Not a good sign indeed. Hopefully they won't axe SCL, which was also launched in 2016. From what I know the route has been performing well both in terms of numbers and yields.

It’s hard to understand how MEX didn’t work for AZ, since there’s no direct competition in that route.

TC957 wrote:

Pretty sure the Chinese airlines will snap up any capacity that's needed.

Yes, but fares are atrocious at around $500rt all in. Chinese airlines will add capacity and likely lose more money.

TC957 wrote:

Pretty sure the Chinese airlines will snap up any capacity that's needed.

I doubt there will be any increase in CA's daily services to FCO, they operate a nice product on the 789 to FCO as well. Not to mention CZ & MU have FCO covered from PVG, CAN, WUH & WNZ.

I believe that the issue Alitalia has with MEX has something to do with Aeroméxico and Delta´s JV and with MEX being a hot and high airport (someone said in another aviation forum that only 70% of the seats are bookable on the return flight from MEX)...Besides, there are some rumors on AM launching a MEX-Italy route soon.

Alitalia is a basket case. Sell it to Lufthansa, fire 50% of it's staff, and be done with it already. For goodness sake.

I would love to see LH win the buy out for Alitalia, give us Star people more hubs to connect from. Can't believe Beijing didn't work, don't they have China Southern and China Eastern as partner? Should CAN or TPE, get feed traffic from China Southern cause CAN is there main hub, and China Airlines at TPE. Or maybe start Indonesia, work with Garuda with PAX to Oceania/Asia etc.

How there deal with Etihad? Is it helping them?

LH658 wrote:

I would love to see LH win the buy out for Alitalia, give us Star people more hubs to connect from. Can't believe Beijing didn't work, don't they have China Southern and China Eastern as partner? Should CAN or TPE, get feed traffic from China Southern cause CAN is there main hub, and China Airlines at TPE. Or maybe start Indonesia, work with Garuda with PAX to Oceania/Asia etc.

How there deal with Etihad? Is it helping them?

There comes the typical "It's a Skyteam hub, must be good for connection, let's fly to all of them" BS

With CZ (CAN-WUH-FCO), MU (WNZ-PVG-FCO), CA (PEK-FCO), and HU (XIY-FCO and CKG-FCO), the China-Italy yield is extremely depressed already. And then, most of those traffic I would say are tourist rather than business anyway.

And what demand is there for Indonesia (GA) or even Vietnam (VN) to Italy? The answer is none. GA lose enough money on their Europe flights as-is.

mercure1 wrote:

I dont have link as its a travel agent advisory, but AZ has announced it will terminate service to Beijing at the end of March citing "low profitability and unfavorable slot timings."
Additionally, Mexico City was suspended last week but will resume for Summer 2018 and operate "seasonally" per advisory.

Both markets were only recently resumed in 2016, so obviously they have not been able to stand on their feet yet.

What slot timings would be favourable for AZ? It somewhat matches what other European carriers have, then again it must work with its own network

zakuivcustom wrote:

LH658 wrote:

I would love to see LH win the buy out for Alitalia, give us Star people more hubs to connect from. Can't believe Beijing didn't work, don't they have China Southern and China Eastern as partner? Should CAN or TPE, get feed traffic from China Southern cause CAN is there main hub, and China Airlines at TPE. Or maybe start Indonesia, work with Garuda with PAX to Oceania/Asia etc.

How there deal with Etihad? Is it helping them?

There comes the typical "It's a Skyteam hub, must be good for connection, let's fly to all of them" BS

With CZ (CAN-WUH-FCO), MU (WNZ-PVG-FCO), CA (PEK-FCO), and HU (XIY-FCO and CKG-FCO), the China-Italy yield is extremely depressed already. And then, most of those traffic I would say are tourist rather than business anyway.

And what demand is there for Indonesia (GA) or even Vietnam (VN) to Italy? The answer is none. GA lose enough money on their Europe flights as-is.

How is there Etihad connection helping them? Do they even receive decent feed from AF/KL?

Mex87 wrote:

I believe that the issue Alitalia has with MEX has something to do with Aeroméxico and Delta´s JV and with MEX being a hot and high airport (someone said in another aviation forum that only 70% of the seats are bookable on the return flight from MEX)...Besides, there are some rumors on AM launching a MEX-Italy route soon.

AN AeroMex 787 is a better plane for such a flight compared to an Alitalia 777 or A330.

LH658 wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

LH658 wrote:

I would love to see LH win the buy out for Alitalia, give us Star people more hubs to connect from. Can't believe Beijing didn't work, don't they have China Southern and China Eastern as partner? Should CAN or TPE, get feed traffic from China Southern cause CAN is there main hub, and China Airlines at TPE. Or maybe start Indonesia, work with Garuda with PAX to Oceania/Asia etc.

How there deal with Etihad? Is it helping them?

There comes the typical "It's a Skyteam hub, must be good for connection, let's fly to all of them" BS

With CZ (CAN-WUH-FCO), MU (WNZ-PVG-FCO), CA (PEK-FCO), and HU (XIY-FCO and CKG-FCO), the China-Italy yield is extremely depressed already. And then, most of those traffic I would say are tourist rather than business anyway.

And what demand is there for Indonesia (GA) or even Vietnam (VN) to Italy? The answer is none. GA lose enough money on their Europe flights as-is.

How is there Etihad connection helping them? Do they even receive decent feed from AF/KL?

Not sure what you mean. I thought the whole reason of AZ being what it is right now is b/c EY stopped dumping money into Tyrrhenian Sea.

zakuivcustom wrote:

LH658 wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

There comes the typical "It's a Skyteam hub, must be good for connection, let's fly to all of them" BS

With CZ (CAN-WUH-FCO), MU (WNZ-PVG-FCO), CA (PEK-FCO), and HU (XIY-FCO and CKG-FCO), the China-Italy yield is extremely depressed already. And then, most of those traffic I would say are tourist rather than business anyway.

And what demand is there for Indonesia (GA) or even Vietnam (VN) to Italy? The answer is none. GA lose enough money on their Europe flights as-is.

How is there Etihad connection helping them? Do they even receive decent feed from AF/KL?

Not sure what you mean. I thought the whole reason of AZ being what it is right now is b/c EY stopped dumping money into Tyrrhenian Sea.

With EY cutting back in North America, they can feed through MXP or FCO, to places like Miami and Boston, and maybe up future destination through Alitalia. Just a thought.

Per GDS looks like last FCO-PEK is March 24th. Flights zero'd out after that.

Makes sense regarding PEK. Who can really compete with Chinese carriers these days? You can fly from any point in Europe to China for as little as €500. On top of that add Emirates, Qatar and Turkish which all seem to be doing well in Rome. TK has even upgauged FCO/MXP to A330.

Mistral1 wrote:

It’s hard to understand how MEX didn’t work for AZ, since there’s no direct competition in that route.

Not direct competition but from Mad there are a lot of daily flights n maybe fares are competitive . And the stop in Mad it’s “convenience “.

Hopefully AM will start MEX-FCO and resume MEX-BCN in the next few years. Their 788 is the perfect plane (capacity and cost-wise) to make it work

Mistral1 wrote:

It’s hard to understand how MEX didn’t work for AZ, since there’s no direct competition in that route.

There’s definitely demand between Italy & Mexico, however IB and AF had the market solidly covered before AZ launched MEX unfortunately for Alitalia. At the very least, the flight is becoming seasonal instead of being dropped altogether. I forget if it was codeshare or not? If not, that probably affected the flight’s revenue and load factor potential.

Please start FCO-SFO

The airline is in receivership while also being actively auctioned off and people are a) surprised they are dropping expensive and highly unprofitable routes during low travel season or b) wondering if they will start new service?

The question for this thread should be: What other routes will drop before May and/or can AZ make it to summer on their cash-on-hand plus available credit?

My real question is: Is AZ allowed to fuel and cater planes on credit or are they being required to pay cash-on-delivery? That's the real indication of how long they will last.

So what I heard is for MEX they just don’t have the right plane. They converted their a350 order to a319 or 320 a while back and now this decision is coming back to bite them in the arse.
About PEK they have complained times and again about the inability to obtain decent slots. All in vain. With current slots the flights are not attractive to business travellers.

I'm not surprised. Alitalia is a dying horse, hasn't made any profit for many years. It's being crushed by the competition. Their cost structure is just way too high. I wouldn't be surprised if more routes are being cut in the near future since that appears to be the only way they can save money.