As part of the carrier’s ongoing strategy to expand its presence on domestic and international routes, private Italian airline Aeroitalia has unveiled the latest addition to its fleet in the form of an Embraer E-190 regional jet. Rolled out in the airline’s full external color scheme on March 29, 2025, the aircraft joins another Embraer regional jet already at the airline, both of which have been leased from Greek-based specialist carrier Marathon Airways on an ACMI (aircraft, crew, maintenance, insurance) arrangement.
Registered SX-PTM, the latest leased aircraft is almost 17 years old, having first been delivered to the now-defunct Baboo Airlines (later Darwin Airline) of Switzerland in 2008. Now owned by leasing firm Azzora, the aircraft has been subleased under a wet-lease arrangement to Aeroitalia for exclusive use on its Rome-Fiumicino (FCO) to Milan-Malpensa (MXP) route. The aircraft seats 100 passengers in a 2×2 single-class layout.
The aircraft operated its first commercial service for the Italian carrier on March 30, 2025, operating flight AEZ2023 from Rome to Milan, and taking 57 minutes to complete the 318-mile (509km) route.
Aeroitalia which only began operations at the end of 2022, has pursued a rapid growth strategy since its inception and now operates a fleet of 14 aircraft on scheduled services within Italy and further afield in Europe. The current fleet comprises nine Boeing 737-800s and a pair of ATR72-600s on its network, supported by four wet-leased aircraft in the form of an Airbus A319 from Fly Air 41 Airways, a Boeing 737-400 from 4 Airways, plus the two Embraer E-jets from Marathon Airlines.
Aeroitalia operates flights on 21 routes to 17 destinations across four countries. The airline serves no fewer than 16 points within Italy, as well as a small number of regional destinations in central and eastern Europe, such as Bucharest and Bacau (Romania), Brno (Czechia), and Lublin (Poland).
The airline’s first Embraer jet, the E175 registered as SX-ASK, arrived from Marathon Airlines in January 2025, and both aircraft can be used on similar routes as demand dictates, with the E175 seating slightly fewer passengers (88 in all). According to the carrier, the two leased Embraer jets have been taken on to undertake longer sectors within Italy that have insufficient traffic to merit deploying one of the airline’s larger 189-seat Boeings.
As both aircraft are understood to be on five-year wet-lease arrangements, this makes the painting of the aircraft into the full Aeroitalia patriotic green, red, and white scheme a valuable exercise, says the airline.
While the larger of the two Embraers is planned to only operate between the main centers of Milan and Rome, the smaller leased E-Jet, is based at Comiso Airport (CIY) in the south of Sicily, and mainly serves Italian regional routes. As well as operating into the major airports in Milan and Rome, it is also deployed on a series of small secondary Italian airports, such as Parma and Cuneo. It will particularly serve destinations in Sicily to Trapani, Catania, and Palermo, as well as its home base at Comiso.
