This past Saturday, Air Italy’s flight IG938 from San Francisco to Milan went mechanical. American Airlines had the part Air Italy needed, but they wouldn’t sell it. The scheduled 7:10 p.m. flight didn’t actually depart until early Monday morning,
American says they needed the part themselves, and an airline has to be “an approved carrier and have a partnership with us to borrow parts, and we don’t have a partnership with Air Italy.” In other words precisely because American is in a spat with Air Italy they won’t list the airline as an approved partner, and won’t lend parts.