The story
The beginning
Blue Panorama Airlines S.p.A. was a privately owned airline. It was founded in Rome in September 1998 by Franco Pecci, Sandro Giulianelli, and Antonio De Ponti. At first it operated in cooperation with Astra Travel, a Rome-based tour operator. The company's purpose was to fly intercontinental, international, and domestic charter flights for tour operators, companies, and private customers.
Blue Panorama established operating bases at Rome-Fiumicino "Leonardo da Vinci" Airport and Milan-Malpensa Airport airports. Flights began at the end of December with two Boeing 737s. Charters related to religious pilgrimages, such as those carried out for Pastoraltour, were also of a certain importance. Scheduled flights began in September 2000, with a first one, a biweekly to Ukrainian capital Kiev and, immediately after, to Barcelona. The airline was admitted to IATA membership in 2002. The first Boeing 767-300ERs were delivered in 2002. In that same year, the air carrier ownership passed to the Distal & ITR Group (66.6%), owned by Franco Pecci family.
Low-cost subsidiary
Since November 2005, some Boeing 737s operated under the low-cost brand Blu-Express from Rome and Milan, both domestically and internationally, to around twenty destinations, some of which were seasonal.
Between 2011 and 2012, Blue Panorama attracted interest from Alitalia. The proposed acquisition raised concerns from ENAC (Italian civil aviation authority) due to the alleged risk of a dominant position. In April 2012, the failure to reach an integration agreement was announced. On 25 November 2013, Blu-express started flights from Italy to Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza after Belle Air ceased operations.
Partly due to this unexpected situation, the company ran into difficulties in 2012 and, after a period of bankruptcy proceedings, was placed under extraordinary administration by the Rome Court in 2014. The management of the airline was left to the company's founder Franco Pecci. After a couple of unsuccessful sales attempts, at the end of 2017 Blue Panorama was acquired by UVET Group, which had previously acquired Settemari. In 2019, UVET announced that it would purchase several Airbus A330-200s for the subsidiary to replace its Boeing 767-300ERs. In October of the same year, Blue Panorama announced that it would change its identity, taking on the name Luke Air by the end of the year. A new livery was painted on the first Airbus A330-200, received in March 2020, while a second aircraft arrived in November. In October, the UVET Group received a €uros 45 million government compensation fund.
The name change leads to nothing
In January 2021, it was announced that the rebrand would go ahead. As of September, the airline's official website had its content changed to Luke Air operated by Blue Panorama Airlines. However, the general situation had reached a point of uncontrollability. On October 27, 2021, Blue Panorama suspended all flight operations stating financial difficulties in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Milan Court admitted the airline to a composition with creditors procedure. The carrier was given until February 28, 2022, to find a solution. In June 2022, it was reported that the grounded airline had retired both of their Airbus A330-200s. In September, ENAC extended the suspension of its Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) until March 2023, but on December 15, the Milan Court issued a decree of "inadmissibility to the composition with creditors procedure", effectively ending the company's history. It was announced that the airline would be liquidated and not resume operations.
From Wikipedia’s article on Blue Panorama Airlines, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5