Alitalia deadline for turnaround plan slides
ROME—Government pledges to present a plan to turn around Alitalia by the end of July have not materialized -- leaving a big question mark on the fate of Italy's flagship airline.
Five Alitalia unions fed up with the failure of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government to communicate news about plans to save the airline issued a statement calling on an end to press rumors.
"There is still time to save Alitalia," the national secretary of the transport union Filt-Cgil Mauro Rossi said Thursday. "But we need a real plan. We need the financial resources to update the fleet, which is aging. We need managers who are capable of running an airline, which has not been the case for the last 10 years."
Rossi said unions have not even been formally notified of the lapsed deadline for a plan, for which the Milan-based bank Intesa Sanpaolo is serving as adviser. Filt-Cgil is the largest of Alitalia's unions, representing 2,500 of 17,000 air and ground employees.
"This government doesn't confirm anything," Rossi said.
Italian newspapers have carried reports that the new plan calls for cutting 5,000 jobs, but the unions said they haven't officially been told.
"Berlusconi, who today is speaking generically of sacrifices, just two months ago caused talks with Air France to fail because he found the sacrifices called for ... unacceptable, doubts shared by the unions," the union statement on Wednesday said.
Alitalia's future has been on hold since Air France-KLM walked out of talks to take over the failing carrier after reaching an impasse with unions.
Among the objections were plans to cut jobs and strip Milan's Malpensa International Airport of its status as a hub. Unions say the Air France plan would have cut total of more than 7,000 jobs -- 2,100 among pilots and crew and another 5,000 among ground personnel.
Berlusconi made the airline's salvation -- and desire to keep it in Italian hands -- a central theme of his election campaign. While he appeared to strike a conciliatory note with Air France after his election, he continued to court other bidders, including Aeroflot, and has heavily promoted a plan to put together a group of Italian investors, which still has not materialized.
Unions are awaiting a meeting of Berlusconi's Cabinet for some indication of the next step, but Rossi says none has been scheduled to deal with the issue and he fears it will wait until the end of August, after the summer holidays.
Treasury Minister Giulio Tremonti is expected to address parliament on Alitalia's situation next week, but no date has been set.
Alitalia is scheduled to release its second quarter earnings on Aug. 8. The airline has been losing 200 million euros ($311.7 million) a day, but Rossi said the losses are stanched by summer traffic.
The European Union also is examining whether a 300 million euro ($467.5 million) rescue loan is illegal.
"The work climate is very tense," Rossi said. "It is a very dangerous to continue this game of information with the media."
