Wind jet
| Wind Jet SpA | |
|---|---|
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| IATA code : | IV |
| ICAO code : | JET |
| Call sign : | GHIBLI |
| Founding: | 2003 |
| Operation stopped: | 2012 |
| Seat: |
Catania , Italy
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| Home airport : | * Catania |
| Number of employees: | 500 |
| Passenger volume: | 2,800,000 (2011) |
| Fleet size: | 12 |
| Aims: | National and international |
| Wind Jet SpA ceased operations in 2012. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Wind Jet was an Italian low-cost airline based in Catania , Sicily .
history
Wind Jet was founded in 2003 by Antonino Pulvirenti. The plan was to set up Wind Jet as a low-cost airline and to be able to offer flights from Sicily at such low prices, since the domestic market from Sicily was largely dominated by Alitalia at that time. This was preceded by the cessation of operations of the also Sicilian airline Air Sicilia in 2003, which tried in the same segment as Wind Jet. Thus Wind Jet is seen as the successor company of Air Sicilia.
The preparations went comparatively quickly, so that flight operations could begin on June 18 with a fleet of three used Airbus A320-200s. The first flight plan included flights from the two Sicilian cities of Catania and Palermo to the destinations of Rome, Milan and Forlì on mainland Italy. The first flight was from Catania to Rome. By the end of the year, Wind Jet had carried a total of 150,000 passengers.
In January 2012, Alitalia announced that it would merge with Wind Jet and Blue Panorama and integrate them. This was supposed to be implemented in April 2012, but was canceled in early August 2012 after failed negotiations. On August 10, flight operations at the airline that was about to come to an end came to a standstill due to financial difficulties: Numerous flights were canceled and there were delays lasting hours. The aviation authority ENAC responded with replacement flights and suspended the airline's ticket sales, which it no longer had any doubts about. In addition, she threatened Wind Jet with a license withdrawal. On the evening of the following day, flight operations were officially ceased. Most recently, the low-cost airline had 500 employees and a fleet of 12 aircraft. The 300,000 tickets already sold for flights up to October are to be served by other companies for a surcharge of 80 euros (domestic); the surcharges are significantly higher for international connections. In 2011 the company carried a total of 2.8 million passengers.
Destinations
The airports of Catania , Palermo and Forlì served as bases for the airline. She flew to destinations in Italy and Europe, such as Pisa, Rome, Madrid, Moscow and Paris. In April 2012, Windjet only served Berlin-Tegel several times a week from Rimini in Germany.
Berlin was also Wind Jet's first destination in Germany. In 2011 the network in Germany was expanded. From April 2011, the Rimini-Cologne route was operated with an A320. From Rimini, Wind Jet also offered a direct connecting flight to Palermo. In the past, Wind Jet also flew to Riga, Tallinn, Lyon, Toulouse, Brussels, Nantes, Cagliari, Krakow, Lampedusa and Timisoara, for example.
fleet
As of January 2012, the Wind Jet fleet consisted of 12 aircraft:
Incidents
- On September 24, 2010, an Airbus A319-132 from Rome-Fiumicino of the Wind Jet with the registration EI-EDM crashed while landing at Palermo-Punta Raisi Airport . During the approach at around 8 p.m. there was heavy rainfall and wind shearings were also reported. The machine touched down 367 meters from runway 07 and continued to slide 850 meters. The main landing gear of the Airbus buckled. Of the total of 129 people on board, 34 passengers and 1 flight attendant suffered minor injuries during the subsequent evacuation of the aircraft. On November 28, 2014, the Italian air accident authority ANSV finally published its final investigation report and named pilot errors as the main cause of the accident: The report found numerous violations of guidelines; The flight captain waived the mandatory landing briefing, insulted the inexperienced copilot who initially piloted the aircraft and gave him insufficient support during the approach until he took control himself. The report also criticizes the fact that the airport staff only triggered the alarm with a delay and that the first rescue vehicles did not arrive at the aircraft until 22 minutes after the accident. At this point, the passengers had already escaped on foot to the nearby airport building.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ centreforaviation.com through numerous European LCCs, including Wind Jet
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento from January 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Wind Jet: About Us
- ↑ flightglobal.com - Alitalia plans merger with Blue Panorama and Wind Jet (English) January 25, 2012
- ↑ Press release on borsaitaliana.it (Italian) , accessed on April 14, 2012
- ↑ derstandard.at - Italian low-cost airline Wind Jet before bankruptcy August 11, 2012
- ↑ volaspheric: Wind Jet ceases operations
- ↑ lifeinitaly.com - Aviation authority threatens to ground Windjet on Monday 10 August 2012
- ↑ derwesten.de from August 12, 2012 , accessed on August 20, 2012 and print edition WAZ (Reise) from August 16, 2012
- ↑ Windjet flight plan , accessed on April 14, 2012
- ↑ Flight plan from 2009 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ ch-aviation.ch: Fleet of the Wind Jet ( Memento of the original from February 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. May 18, 2011
- ↑ fliegerweb.com: Wind Jet A319 crash-landed
- ↑ ANSV: Aeroporto di Palermo Punta Raisi, A319 marche EI-EDM , accessed on December 8, 2012 (in Italian)
- ↑ Aviation Herald: Accident: Windjet A319 at Palermo on Sep 24th 2010, touched down short of runway , accessed on December 8, 2014 (in English)
- ↑ Accident report A319 EI-EDM , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on January 31, 2020.
Web links
- Wind Jet website
- Photos of the Wind Jet on airliners.net
