ITA Airways To Retire A330

ITA Airways will say goodbye to its Airbus A330 fleet in the coming days as part of a move towards efficient aircraft.

Flagged by Cirium, the Italian carrier, which replaced Alitalia some years ago, will not move into 2026, with a retirement to come on the final day of 2025.

The final flight between Boston Logan and Rome Fiumicino on 31 December 2025 would mark the permanent retirement of this aircraft, as the business transitions to newer models.

A decision to move away from the Airbus A330 should come as no surprise; the A330ceo was initially intended to be retired by October 2025. However, in May, the airline extended the A330-200’s long-haul operation through to the end of this month on specific routes.

According to the airlines’ booking systems available in May of this year, the A330-200 routes were to continue until the final three days of December, with the specific date of service conclusion not yet published.

From May through now, ITA Airways has been progressively retiring its fleet of Airbus A330ceo jets; however, the retirements are hardly a departure from the broader A330 family, with the new engine model taking the airline into future decades and into one of its latest pieces of tech.

Throughout the months since May, the A330ceo fleet has gradually reduced, and with the reduction, the routes that featured these older units were replaced by either the A330-900, part of the neo series or the A350-900, two vastly more efficient models.

Now, fleet data shows that ITA Airways has just one more Airbus A330-202 active in its fleet, registered EI-EJH, which entered service with the airline in October 2021. Before that, it flew with Alitalia, where it was first delivered in July 2010; thus, it is 15.5 years old.

Planespotters.net data shows that EI-EJH is likely to be converted to PR-AII, where it’ll operate with Azul under a lease from Elevate Capital Partners in a C20Y236 configuration.

The ITA Airways Fleet

ITA Airways’ fleet consists of 72 active aircraft, with 31 jets parked, bringing the total to 103, according to the latest data from planespotters.net; therefore, the airline has many grounded jets.

Some of the parked planes are for maintenance, inactive, or parked due to issues. Still, the Italian carrier has been among the hardest hit by the Pratt & Whitney engine saga, given its firm reliance on Airbus aircraft powered by these engines.

ITA Airways has taken delivery of 29 of the A220 family jets, but 12 of these remain grounded, a significant number that isn’t any better when examining other fleet types that are part of the next generation.

The oldest aircraft now, by average age, is the A319 at 17.2 years. There are seven units still listed as active, followed by a commitment to the A320 family, where 36 aircraft are present, just 25 operational, however.

Given the airlines’ reliance on the A320neo, there are 11 aircraft active and eight parked, bringing the total to 19. It’s no better with the A321neo: four units are active, and three are listed as parked.

Twelve of the A330-900s are active, part of a commitment to the A330neo, with more expected in the future, complemented by the one outgoing A330-200.

The airline’s flagship product is the A350, with six -900 models in its fleet, averaging 6.1 years of age and integral to long-haul international connectivity.