Review of ITA Airways flight from Rome to Paris in Economy

introduction

Hello AvGeeks !
Here we are with a new report on a brand new aircraft recently acquired by ITA airways: the A321neo!
After a short 4 days in Florence, it's time to return to Paris and I had the opportunity to fly the new Italian flagship, ITA Airways. ITA's A321neo are being deployed on longer routes such as Rome to Cairo, but for the moment you can still have the opportunity to fly them on shorter routes like the one of this report.
Let's embark on this trip!

ITA A321neo and its future routes

The Airbus A321neo is particularly successful thanks to its quiet cabin and the fact that it is a more environmentally friendly aircraft. In comparison with previous-generation aircraft like the A320ceo or the A319, it consumes 20% less kerosene and reduces the noise impact by 50%.
Furthermore, it has three different cabins: Business, Premium and Economy, just as on normal long-haul aircraft configurations.

ITA Airways is slowly deploying all these A321neos (currently 5 in the fleet on the 26/06/2024) on new routes such as:
- Rome FCO to Riyadh RUH on AZ838
- Rome FCO to Dakar DSS on AZ854
- Rome FCO to Accra ACC on AZ852

They should be deployed also to Dubai DXB in 2025 ! 

And here it is!

MY SPECIFIC AIRCRAFT

My specific aircraft, the EI-HXD, was delivered to ITA Airways on January 2024, so at the time of the flight it was just 4 months old.
The aircraft was just arriving back from a return rotation to Amsterdam and a Cairo - Rome flight prior in the early morning. It is powered with 2 Pratt & Whitney engines and is named to Luigi Datome former Italian basketball player.

Aircraft type: A321-271NX
Airline: ITA Airways
Age: 4 months (at time of flight)
Delivered: February 2024

<a href="https://seatmaps.com/airlines/az-ita-airways/airbus-a321neo/#670f0c94cc5271fe6017eeffa642b7d3"><img src="https://seatmaps.com/img/screenshots/seatmaps/670f0c94cc5271fe6017eeffa642b7d3.webp" alt="ITA Airways Airbus A321neo aircraft seat map A321neo LR" loading="lazy">
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ROME FCO HISTORY & EXPERIENCE

Rome FCO airport is named after the Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci and was historically the main hub of Alitalia (former national Italian airline that ceased operations in 2021).

It was opened in 1961 replacing the older Ciampino airport. Today it is the 9th busiest European airport with more than 40m passengers in 2023 and is home of several airlines operating bases like Ryanair, Vueling and Wizz Air.

Rome FCO has also been renewed in the optic of relaunching Italian aviation. The terminal was very clean (quite empty though) and offers nice views on the tarmac and on boarding aircraft: a Ryanair B737-800 and an Air Baltic A220 off to Vilnius in the pictures.

As you can see, there were lots of departures in a crowded air traffic moment on this day at FCO with departures to San Francisco, Dubai, Washington, Tokyo and all over Europe and North Africa.

I went for a classic Italian sandwich with mozzarella and tomatoes while waiting in the Terminal and spotting aircraft in the ground area ;)

Airport image extracted from FlightRadar24.

TIME TO BOARD !

With just 20/25 minutes delay, boarding started with the Business and Premium classes then Economy class for the rest of the passengers. Today I was at the rear of the aircraft at seat 47A, but offering a very nice view on the wing !

A view on a taxiing ITA Airbus A320neo and another Airbus A321neo, of Wizz Air, that was just next to us getting ready as well for departure.

Onboard and today's seat

Seats are very large and comfortable, they offer wide legroom and a very good IFE where you can watch movies or just enjoy interactive maps. The spacing between seats is impressive and really makes the cabin feel much more wide than classic A321ceo. 

That's our view for this 2-hours trip off to the French capital city. Another A321neo from Wizz Air preparing for its flight.

It was soon time to pushback and get our journey started, bye bye Rome !

TAXI AND TAKEOFF

We taxiied for about 5 to 10 minutes to reach runway 25 (runways in Rome FCO are 07/25, 34L/16R and 34R/16L) for take-off. While taxi procedure, it was nice spotting some aircraft around the airfield, notably an ITA Airways Airbus A320neo, a Boeing B757 of Icelandair off to Reykjavik and a Boeing B787 of NEOS. After this last one, it was our time to set take-off thrust.

TAKE-OFF AND CLIMB OUT OF ROME

We took off with about 25 minutes delay but it was a smooth climb out of Fiumicino airport 

Departing from runway 25 in Rome FCO has a procedure that makes you fly over the sea right after take-off.

ONBOARD SERVICE AND IFE

During this two hours ride, a drink and a snack option between salty and sweet was offered by the cabin crew with a small chocolate. I opted for the salty one with an orange juice.

We were overflying Northern Italy, the Alps and then entering French airspace with beautiful views (as always over the clouds) ;)
Flying the A321neo is really smooth and you can really feel engine noise reduction.

ITA Airways A321neo IFE is fitted with several options like movies, music and interactive maps. All what is needed to ensure passengers entertainment even on medium to long-haul flights with this aircraft like flying to Accra on a 5 and half hour journey.

And of course you can display essential flight's data (the favourite feature of avgeeks) with flight time remaining, distance to destination, outside temperature, speed, heading and altitude. 

You can directly turn on your personal light from the screen or just turn off the IFE.

DESCENT AND LANDING

About 35 minutes before landing, Captain announced that we were starting our descent to Paris CDG.

Landing on runway 26L and then taxiing to our assigned gate. It's always sensational to pass by the Concorde that used to fly for Air France and that is today exposed in the middle of CDG airport (the aircraft tail number is F-BVFF) and is elevated on three pillars with a little inclination angle to the right that indicates its first turn after taking-off from runway 27.

And our flight finished by parking to an Aegean A320ceo arriving from Athens.