Italy and America are even closer. ITA Airways, the Italian flag company, announced the opening of the new direct flight between Rome Fiumicino and the Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport. It is the first direct link in history between Rome and Houston, a route so far covered only with intermediate steps, mainly through European or US hubs.
Houston is the fourth most populous city in the United States and one of the world’s leading oil and gas industries, as well as hosting the Texas Medical Center and several aerospace research centers connected to NASA. This is why the opening of the flight brings with it an almost strategic factor: on the one hand there is definitely coverage of the tourist needs, on the other it can be an incentive to the development of the business linked to the energy and industrial sector. Houston had never had a direct flight with Rome, and this had limited mutual accessibility and extended travel times for passengers and economic operators.
The new link is also part of the ITA Airways strategy, which focuses mainly on the development of new long-range routes, crucial for the company’s financial sustainability and its competitive positioning in the European market. The United States is in fact the first international market for ITA, with routes already operating towards New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Boston.
The start of the flight was accompanied by two inaugural ceremonies, one in Fiumicino and one in Houston, with the participation of airport authorities, local institutions and representatives of the company. Among these, also the Democratic Party MP, Christian Di Sanzo, who spoke of “A request from the Italian community in Houston for which I had placed a specific question to the Ministry of Transport in October 2024, requiring an ITA attention in the passage to Lufthansa to strengthen direct links between Italy and North America. A request on which I continued to ask attention in these months”. In the speech, the MP also wanted to thank “the work of ITA, but above all the Ambassador of the United States to Rome Tilman Fertitta, Houstonian who immediately worked to make this flight become reality! ».
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