Alitalia said Wednesday it would increase its flights by 36 percent next month as countries ease coronavirus travel restrictions. The troubled Italian airline, which is set to be nationalised, plans to resume on June 2 flights between Rome and New York as well as certain flights to Spain. Along with some additional domestic flights, it will represent a 36 percent increase in operations from May and mean the airline is operating 30 flights between 25 airports, including 10 abroad. From July it plans to be operating at about 40 percent of its level it planned before the coronavirus crisis hit. "Flight offering will increase according to the trend in demand, which is already recovering on some domestic routes, and benefiting from the progressive abolition by foreign countries of restrictions on flights and passengers from Italy" as well as relaxed measures Italy is imposing on inbound travellers, it said in a statement. Alitalia said did not cut back its flight schedule as much as some rivals in order to maintain essential services. In the first half of May Alitalia operated 15 percent of the flights it did at the same time last year, a figure it said was double the rate of its major European carriers and many times the 2 percent level of low-cost carriers. On all of its flights it is filling only half of the seats to provide physical distance between passengers. The Italian government plans to create a new public company next month and inject at least three billion euros in order to save Alitalia, which has been dogged by years of losses and which investors including foreign airlines failed to turn around. Some 6,600 of the airline's employees have been furloughed because of the coronavirus crisis. cco/rl/cdw