Meridiana fly (Olbia) has announced further details of its restructuring plan that sees the carrier reducing its MD-80 fleet down to 7 aircraft based in Olbia. Meridiana and Air Italy (I9/Milan Malpensa) are still operating as separate entities but are utilizing each other’s aircraft as required and the merger process has been heavily delayed because of disputes between management and trade unions, a variety of other fleet development plans have been announced and then again withdrawn but will obviously be key to the success of the merger given Air Italy operates B737s and B767s and Meridiana fly besides the MD-80s operates A319s, A320s and A330s. They have launched joint new routes: Milan Linate-Bari: 2x daily A320-200 service has started on October 30 Verona-Mauritius: weekly B767-300ER service has started on December 19 (operated by Air Italy) Meridiana has given up its routes from Florence to Barcelona on August 27, from Milan Malpensa to Colombo Bandaranaike Intl on September 13, from Milan Malpensa to Cairo on September 16, from Florence to Madrid on October 10 and from Bologna Marconi to Catania, from Florence to Catania and Olbia as well as from Verona to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion in late October. It will also terminate its Bologna Marconi-Moscow Domodedovo services as of January 13 and its Rome Fiumicino-Tel Aviv Ben Gurion route on March 22. Despite earlier incorrect reports by ch-aviation, Meridiana had again operated its seasonal summer only services from Tortoli to Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino and Verona between August 8 and October 10 using an ATR 42-300 wet-leased from DAT - Danish Air Transport (DX/Vamdrup). Meridiana fly has entered into a unilateral codeshare agreement offering Air Berlin (AB/Berlin Tegel) services between Italy and Germany under IG flight numbers as well. In addition, it now also codeshares with Royal Jordanian (RJ/Amman Queen Alia) on RJ services from Milan Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino to Amman Queen Alia.