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The story
The air carrier had its origins in Air Columbia, established in 1984 in the city of Pescara, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Only air taxi activities were carried out by this company. It was wholly owned by Giuseppe Spadaccini, an Abruzzo businessman active in various sectors of aviation which he controlled through the financial company Aeroservices. After this entity acquired Air Besit in 2001, it decided to deploy its two Swearingen SA-227 Metroliners in a closer geographic area (Pescara) and begin scheduled flights to Rome and other Italian cities. In 2000, the entrepreneur felt the time had come for a broader transformation.
In 2003 TAI-Trasporti Aerei Italiani was born but it was a temporary solution. Between the end of 2003 and 2004 the new name ItAli Airlines was adopted. From October 2003 the air carrier linked Pescara Abruzzo Airport with important cities, connecting there with domestic and international flights. In particular, the daily flight to Milan-Linate Airport was operated by a Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner. Other flights were operated by a Dornier 328Jet regional airliner.
Charter operations were flown with McDonnell Douglas MD-82s, primarily from Rome-Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport and Milan Malpensa Airport. The main destinations in the summer of 2010 were Samos, Lourdes, Lampedusa, Rhodes, and, above all, Tirana, with multiple weekly flights. On 16 December of the same year, the airline began RomeLeonardo Da Vinci International Airport-Genoa and Genoa-Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport flights.
In early summer 2009 the airline's air taxi arm was established, with a hub at Rome Ciampino Airport and a secondary base at Milan-Linate Airport. Executive flights were operated under MustFly brand, whose aircraft were well placed under ItAli Airlines AOC. The fleet included two Dornier 328JETs, those previously used on scheduled flights, specially reconfigured with 19 seats accommodation.
On 21 October 2010, following investigations conducted by the Pescara tax police unit of the Guardia di Finanza ("Operation Flying Money"), Giuseppe Spadaccini was arrested along with 12 other people for a massive international tax evasion scheme involving €uros 90 million. He was allegedly the mastermind and organizer of a network of companies involved in tax evasion between Italy and the island of Madeira. On 11 March 2011, ENAC (Italian civil aviation authority) suspended the AOC due to the persistence of some air carrier critical issues.
From Wikipedia’s article on ItAli Airlines, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4