Flying Alitalia? At Least You Can Read About the ICBIE!

One of the clearest indications of an excruciatingly boring flight is when you are so desperate that you read the in-flight magazine, where all the stories of exotic travel and adventures only make your trip to the Midwest seem more mundane. For that very reason, you can’t help envying the travelers whose fate landed them on an Alitalia plane, because that beleaguered carrier has brilliantly compensated for its chronic flight delays, lost luggage, and poor service by including a brilliant full-page article about the ICBIE in its on board magazine!

Written by Piero Faltoni, the story is entitled, “To Salvador de Bahia, Solidarity and a Vacation,” and it recounts the whole ICBIE story, from D’Artagnan’s paintings to the founding of the Institute, the academic program, the Da Vinci Library, and the collaborations in the neighborhood, including the Minha vò Flor orphanage. It closes with a paragraph dedicated to the dream of restoring the old hydroplane base at the tip of the Ribeira peninsula, where Italo Balbo completed his historic 1930 transatlantic flight, and transforming the site into a museum.

Alitalia, as a company, is in terrible shape (and how could it be otherwise, when its name is an acronym for “Always Late In Take-off, Always Late In Arrival”), but we have to thank them for a sweet article!