Imperial Line

According to Federico Caprotti, "The celebration of colonial air links ... can be seen as playing into modern connotations of speed, progress, and reach, as well as aspirations to superiority.

... [T]he geographical imaginations evinced through the airline's documents and visual materials are deeply modern in their celebration of technological prowess and the domination of nature and space.

On 7 July 1935 a memorandum of agreement was signed with Imperial Airways, a private British firm, whereby they would carry Ala Littoria passengers from Brindisi in southern Italy as far as Khartoum in the Sudan (via Cairo in Egypt).

Ala Littoria's chief executive, Umberto Klinger, claimed optimistically to Il Messaggero in 1936 that the route from Rome to Mogadishu took just three and a half days.

The opening of the route from Rome to Addis Abeba via Cairo was delayed by the negotiations with the Egyptian government concerning flyover rights.

Main colonial governors: Agenore Frangipani; Guglielmo Nasi; Enrico Cerulli; Pietro Gazzera; Luigi Frusci; Alessandro Pirzio Biroli