Blue Panorama Airlines

If you spotted at Malpensa or Fiumicino in the 2000s and 2010s, you know the name: Blue Panorama brought Italian vacationers to the Mediterranean on Boeing 737s and to the Caribbean on Boeing 767s. The airline is history – it hasn’t flown since October 2021. That’s exactly why a look back is worthwhile: this page sums up codes, fleet, brands and recognition features so you can place old photos with confidence.

Blue Panorama at a glance

Blue Panorama Airlines was an Italian charter and leisure airline based in Fiumicino, right at Rome’s largest airport. It was founded in September 1998, and at the end of December of the same year it took off for the first time. The founders were several Italian entrepreneurs around Franco Pecci, who led the airline as president for almost two decades. In the early years, Blue Panorama worked closely with a tour operator; many flights were classic charters for package holidays, plus pilgrimage flights.

From September 2000, Blue Panorama also offered its own scheduled flights, and in 2002 it joined IATA. In the same year the first Boeing 767-300ERs arrived – letting the airline serve long-haul destinations in the Caribbean, Africa and the Indian Ocean. That put it in the same league as other Italian leisure airlines, such as Neos.

Important for context: Blue Panorama is a historic airline. It ceased commercial operations on October 28, 2021, and court-ordered liquidation followed in December 2022. Today you only encounter it on photos, in logbooks and in spotter archives.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code BV: appeared in the flight number on tickets, departure boards and schedules – including on flights under the Blu-express brand.
• ICAO code BPA: used by air traffic control in the flight plan; on flight trackers it appeared before the flight number.
• Callsign BLUE PANORAMA: this is how the crews identified themselves on the radio.

With historic airlines in particular, it pays to keep IATA and ICAO codes cleanly separate. Codes are sometimes reassigned after an airline ends – so when you caption old photos, it’s best to note date, code and registration together. How the two code systems work is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes; you’ll find the difference between callsign and flight number under Callsign vs. flight number.

History in stages

Blue Panorama went through several phases in a good two decades – from young charter airline through an insolvency to a failed restart.

Period	What happened
1998	Founded in September, first operations at the end of December with Boeing 737-400s
2000	Start of its own scheduled flights, initially to Kyiv and Barcelona
2002	IATA membership and first Boeing 767-300ERs for long-haul
2005	Launch of the low-cost brand Blu-express in November
2011–2012	Talks about a merger with Alitalia, ended in spring 2012
2012–2014	Creditor protection and insolvency proceedings, 2014 special administration by the court in Rome
2013	Blu-express takes over routes to Tirana after the demise of the Albanian Belle Air
2017	Takeover by the travel group Uvet
2019–2020	Announcement of the new brand Luke Air, arrival of the first Airbus A330-200s
2021	Operations ceased on October 28
2022	Suspension of the operating license by ENAC, failed sale, liquidation in December

The planned merger with Alitalia in the early 2010s is an intriguing detail: the aviation authority ENAC saw the risk of a dominant market position, and by April 2012 the talks were off the table. Shortly afterward, Blue Panorama itself got into difficulties and had to go through insolvency proceedings. The airline kept flying during this time. How difficult the Italian market was for smaller airlines is also shown by Meridiana and its successor Air Italy, which gave up in 2020.

The fleet: Boeing 737 and Boeing 767

Blue Panorama was a Boeing airline throughout its existence. Only at the very end did Airbus come into play. The following overview sums up the main types; the numbers show how many examples were in service in total over the years, not the stock on a particular date.

Type	Examples in total (approx.)	In service	Role	Spotter note
Boeing 737-400	16	1999–2020	Medium-haul, workhorse of the early years	Partly leased from other airlines
Boeing 737-300	5	2000–2020	Medium-haul, latterly with Blu-express titles	Shorter than the -400
Boeing 737-500	1	2013–2016	Smallest 737 type in the fleet	Rare subject
Boeing 737-800	10	2000–2022	Medium-haul, latterly the main type	189 seats, partly with winglets
Boeing 757-200	2	2005–2012	Medium and longer routes	Rare chapter of fleet history
Boeing 767-300ER	10	2002–2020	Long-haul in the Caribbean, Africa and the Indian Ocean	The airline’s flagship
Airbus A330-200	2	2020–2022	Replacement for the 767	In the Luke Air look

The Boeing 737-800 was the most important type in the last decade. At the collapse in October 2021, the active fleet consisted mainly of 737-800s, supplemented by one 737-300 and one 737-400 each. You recognize the older Classic versions by their smaller engine inlets flattened at the bottom – more on this in the guide Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart.

For many spotters, the Boeing 767-300ER was the real highlight. Latterly only three examples were in service. At the end of 2019, Uvet announced it would replace the almost 30-year-old 767s with used Airbus A330-200s; the first arrived in March 2020, the second in November 2020. The first former Qatar aircraft was supposed to carry a Maltese registration with 9H-. Because of the pandemic, its service stayed short. The manufacturer of the rest of the fleet was Boeing.

Blu-express and Executive Blue: the brands

There were several brands under the Blue Panorama umbrella. That matters when sorting old photos, because the same name wasn’t always on the fuselage.

• Blu-express: the low-cost brand from November 2005. It flew Boeing 737s on Italian domestic routes – such as Rome, Milan, Turin, Bari, Catania, Palermo, Reggio Calabria, Lampedusa and Pantelleria – as well as on selected European routes. From 2013 it played a big role on the connections to Tirana.
• Executive Blue: a small business travel division that flew the Piaggio P.180 Avanti between 2009 and 2014 – an Italian turboprop with pusher propellers.
• Luke Air: the planned new brand from the end of 2019. The name derives from the first name of owner Luca Patanè. It became visible mainly on the two A330-200s.

Network and destinations

Blue Panorama was strongest where Italians go on vacation. On medium-haul routes, Greek islands such as Corfu, Crete, Kos, Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini or Zakynthos were scheduled, plus Ibiza, Menorca and Mallorca, Bodrum in Turkey and destinations in Egypt such as Sharm El-Sheikh.

On long-haul, the 767s went to Cuba – with destinations such as Havana, Cayo Largo, Holguín, Santa Clara and Santiago –, to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico and the Bahamas. In Africa, Blue Panorama flew to Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, Senegal and Cape Verde, among others, plus destinations such as the Maldives. There was a codeshare partnership with Cubana de Aviación.

A large share of the flights ran as charters on behalf of tour operators. What that means for schedules and spotting is explained in the article Charter flights vs. scheduled flights. Because leisure airlines often lease in aircraft during peak season, outside aircraft showed up at Blue Panorama too – more on this under Wet lease explained.

How to recognize Blue Panorama on photos

Because the airline no longer flies, recognizing it is mainly about archive pictures. The most reliable feature is the titles on the fuselage: “Blue Panorama” for the parent company, “Blu-express” for the low-cost brand. The color scheme changed over the years, so you shouldn’t rely on the tail alone.

Add to that the aircraft type – almost always a Boeing 737 or 767 – and the registration. The airline’s own aircraft generally carried Italian registrations with I-. For leased aircraft it could be different – for example, a registration in Malta was planned for the first A330-200. You recognize the two A330-200s by the new Luke Air look in blue, yellow and white.

Blue Panorama in Rome and Milan: spotting then and now

The bases were at Italy’s two largest airports. At Rome Fiumicino Airport the airline had its headquarters, and at Milan Malpensa Airport many long-haul flights to the Caribbean departed. At Malpensa in particular, numerous photos of the 767 were taken – there they were regularly seen alongside the aircraft of other leisure airlines.

Today you no longer see Blue Panorama flights at either airport. The places remain exciting anyway: at Fiumicino, ITA Airways and many European airlines shape the picture, at Malpensa, among others, the leisure airlines of Neos. If you want to spot in Milan, you can combine the trip with the aviation museum Volandia at Malpensa Airport.

If you want to follow former aircraft, the registration helps – as long as it hasn’t changed. How that works is explained in the article Collecting registrations; why aircraft often get new registrations when the operator changes, you can read under Re-registrations. And if you’re just starting out, you’ll find the basics in Plane spotting for beginners.

An incident that stuck in memory

On July 16, 2004, a Blue Panorama Boeing 767-300ER suffered an engine failure with a fire on takeoff at Fiumicino. The cause was a leaking fuel hose: fuel had already run into the engine cowling during taxiing and ignited on takeoff. The crew returned and landed safely. The case shows how many details in aviation have to fit together – and is part of the history of the 767 at Blue Panorama.

Common mix-ups

• Thinking Blue Panorama is an active airline – operations ended in October 2021, liquidation followed in December 2022.
• Confusing Blue Panorama with Blue Air – Blue Air was a Romanian low-cost airline, Blue Panorama an Italian leisure airline.
• Logging Blu-express as a separate airline – Blu-express was a brand of Blue Panorama and flew with its codes.
• Treating Luke Air as a new company – Luke Air was the planned new brand of the same airline.
• Thinking every Italian 767 is Blue Panorama – other leisure airlines such as Neos also used the 767. Titles and registration decide.
• Overlooking the A330-200s – they were part of the fleet only briefly and are therefore a rare subject.

Conclusion

For more than 20 years, Blue Panorama was a typical Italian leisure airline: Boeing 737s for the Mediterranean, Boeing 767s for the Caribbean, plus the low-cost brand Blu-express and many charter flights for tour operators. Insolvency, a change of owner and the planned restart as Luke Air show how hard the market was for small airlines in Italy. For spotters, the airline remains a rewarding archive topic – with photos that can’t be taken again today.