Pope Leo XIV receives ITA Airways staff: homage and gratitude to the national airline, historic “papal partner”
A special bond, the one between Leone XIV and ITA Airways. On Monday 23 March, the Pope received executives and employees of the Italian national airline in audience, and his words went far beyond simple formal thanks.
«Tracing routes in the skies dialogue, meeting, brotherhood»: this, in short, is the mission that Leo XIV attributes to the apostolic journeys. Present yourself as a messenger of peace. And ITA Airways, heir to a tradition that has its roots (or rather, its wings) in the flights of Paul VI (at the time the Italian flag carrier was Alitalia), will be an integral part of that mission.
A tradition that goes back a long way
Indeed, papal travel by plane marks some of the most important events of recent decades. A “partnership”, if you can call it that, was born in 1964, when Paul VI made the first pilgrimage to the Holy Land: since that moment no successor has stopped sailing the heavens. John Paul II still holds the record with 104 trips international (on the other hand, this is by far the longest-standing teaching), followed by Francis with 47 trips to 66 countries and by Benedict XVI, with 24 trips.
In all of this, the Italian national airline, first Alitalia and then ITA Airways, accompanied the Popes step by step. A “special” bond, precisely, as Leo XIV himself defined it, made not only of technical professionalism but also of that human warmth capable of making “the environment serene, almost familiar”.
Leo XIV’s next voyage
The Pope also mentioned the next stage. On April 13 he will leave for Africa, the second apostolic trip of his pontificate after the one to Türkiye and Lebanon at the end of November – beginning of December last year. The destinations will be Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. In between, on March 28th, a brief stop in the Principality of Monaco, reached in this case not by plane, but by helicopter.
Flying with him to Africa will once again be ITA Airways. On the occasion of the meeting, the company gave the Pope a free model of its Airbus A350-900, the very one in which the trip will be made. After all, as Leone says, «aircraft should always be carriers of peace, never of war!».
