Lufthansa Italia cleared for take-off

The first scheduled service to be operated by the new Lufthansa Italia airline is scheduled for take-off on 2 February 2009. The maiden flight is from Milan to Barcelona and a second flight will take off for Paris. Customers from Milan and the Lombardy region will in future have a choice of eight new non-stop connections within Europe from Malpensa. The initial first two flights will be followed in early March by others to Brussels, Budapest, Bucharest and Madrid. London (Heathrow) and Lisbon will be added to the network in the 2009 summer flight schedules at the end of March. The first two Airbus A319 aircraft in the fleet were named Milan and Varese. They are configured to seat 138 passengers in Business and Economy Class.