Alitalia will offer transatlantic Hand Baggage Only fares

Alitalia’s Hand Baggage Only (HBO) or “light” fares will be available on routes linking Italy with the US and Canada, from April 10, 2018, offering cheaper fares for passengers boarding transatlantic flights with only hand luggage. This means the Italian airline will be falling in line with both Air France and KLM who are also launching HBO fares around the same time.

Alitalia’s HBO offerings are comparable to those offered by low-cost carrier Norwegian who is now active in the Italian market. HBO fares are already offered by Aer Lingus, TAP Air Portugal, Scandinavian Airlines and Lufthansa (Scandinavian sales only).  Low-cost carriers like Norwegian and Iceland’s Wow Air already have HBO offers.

Who will be next ? US carrier Delta is tipped to follow Air France, Alitalia and KLM with HBO fares.  Delta works closely with these carriers and not having an HBO offering would complicate matters (as regards tariffs, flight changes and so on).

And when Delta follows we can reasonably expect all the other majors, like British Airways, American Airlines, United, Lufthansa Group and Virgin Atlantic, to follow suit. Businesstraveller.com & Alitalia.com