C.A.I. First S.p.A. was an Italian airline operating flights for its parent company, Alitalia, to preserve slots at Linate Airport. For this reason Alitalia when merged with Air One didn't close C.A.I. First, which at that time still operated as Alitalia Express. It used to have bases at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome and Malpensa Airport in Milan. C.A.I. First was dissolved and merged into Alitalia mainline by February 2015.

The name C.A.I. First was only a legal name and wasn't used in public, all of its flights were branded as Alitalia.

The airline was established and started operations on 1 October 1997. It was founded from the defunct Avianova. In March 2003 it was reported that Alitalia was considering taking over Minerva Airlines which had suspended flight operations and transferring the turboprop fleet of Alitalia Express to Minerva Airlines. However, this did not happen.

In December 2008, Compagnia Aerea Italiana (C.A.I.) took over Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane and Air One, merging the two companies together to create the "new Alitalia". With the take over, CAI also received Alitalia Express and Air One CityLiner. The Alitalia Express brand has been phased out and the regional arm of Alitalia is now Alitalia CityLiner by rebranding Air One CityLiner.

The last fleet of Alitalia Express, 10 Embraer 170, was completely phased out by March 2013. Only one Airbus A320-200 (EI-DSC) from mainline Alitalia was moved in the fleet to preserve the slots. The same solution had been used with C.A.I. Second which used to be Volareweb.com.

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