Profitability, Practicality and Ideology

Abstract

The history of the Italian fascist regime's main airline, Ala Littoria, is analyzed in this paper. Operated in 1934-40 throughout Italy, Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as in Italy's North and East African colonies, the airline's civil role progressively decreased in 1940-43 as aircraft and personnel were subsumed into the Italian air force. The carrier was the result of an amalgamation of smaller pre-existing airlines. Ala Littoria is considered with regards to the tension between organising a viable commercial enterprise and the ideological use to which Ala Littoria was put as symbol of fascist modernity and ideology. First, the paper examines the history, operations and place of Ala Littoria within the wider frame of 1930s European civil aviation, especially following the regime's policy of economic autarchy (self-sufficiency) following Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Second, from the domestic network to colonial routes, the airline's route network is excavated and segmented on various levels. Third, the paper examines salient problems which the airline encountered in its operations, as well as its attempts to become a vector which could successfully link fascist Italy with Europe and its colonial possessions. , In view of its practical role in fascist transport and colonial projects, and in its symbolic role as a signifier both of political ambition and national pride, the history of Ala Littoria is examined as a commercial company.