History
The airline was founded as Alisarda on March 29, 1963 by the Aga Khan, Prince Karīm al-Hussaynī, as an air-taxi and charter operator to promote tourism to Sardinia. Scheduled services began in 1964 from Olbia. In 1989, 35% of new stock was released to new shareholders to strengthen the company and the name Meridiana was adopted on 3 May 1991. The first international services were operated later in 1991 to Barcelona, Paris, London and Frankfurt. A 29.95% stake in Eurofly was acquired in December 2006. The name then changed to Meridiana Fly, following the Meridiana-Eurofly merger. Meridiana fly is owned by Interprogramme (57.19%), SA AgaKhan (17.59%), employees (16.08%), Airfin (in liquidation) (4.51%), Fondazione Cariplo (3.39%) and other shareholders (1.24%). It has 1,358 employees (at March 2007).
During 2004, Meridiana replaced four BAe 146-200s with four leased Airbus A319-100s, and has plans for a fifth. In January 2004 it was reported that Meridiana was planning to replace its McDonnell Douglas MD-82 fleet with 17 Airbus A320-200s.
In 2006 it transported over 4.6 million people, a 15.7% increase compared to 2005 figures.
Read more about this topic: Meridiana Fly
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