Alitalia in Trouble?

[Garry Russell]

Things aren't looking good for Alitalia although it is hard to seperate hype from fact as always

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.j ... lit114.xml

Garry

[DispatchDragon]

Garry

the fall of XL will probably see the demise of the small US carrier Xtra which XL owned a 49% share of

Leif

[Jon.M]

Unfortunately there is a lot of hype and politics in this.

Silvio Berlusconi promised to save Alitalia and keep it in Italian hands during the recent election and a lot of government money has already been poured into the airline (probably breaching EU monopoly laws).
An earlier offer to buy Alitalia by a consortium of Air France and KLM failed as much because of political difficulty of selling the national airline to foreigners as anything else.

Alitalia was very inefficient when it was in government hands and has not improved much over the last few years.

It is not economically viable as it is and it currently seems unlikely that the unions will agree to the necessary downsizing and economies.

I think Alitalia is a dead duck.

Jon

[Garry Russell]

Hi Jon

I does seem to be back to the wall with no way out

The Politics and the unions are fighting to try and keep is essentially as it is when it has to change or die :brick: .....well maybe it's too late now

Others that may have taken it on now have problems of their own and anyways now is just not the time

Garry

[Jon.M]

It's still possible that something can be saved I suppose, but I believe that it would be about as worthwhile as British Leyland was.

Jon

[Garry Russell]

Worthwile Jon..if only for the name

But it has to be different.obvious as it fails in it's present form.

But those involved just don't seem to want to change and no one is going to take it on withought changing everything,

The name would be all that was left :think:

Garry

[DaveB]

Saw this on the news yesterday. A bit off when a national carrier is suffering the same as the small fry. It was reported yesterday that the Italian government would do what it could to stop Alitalia going under. Another aquisition by Mr Branson perhaps :o Nah!

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Garry Russell]

The governement if they do will no doubt stand back as long as they can hoping someone else will step in

But when it comes to turning the light off.........

Garry

[DispatchDragon]

The one thing I dont understand is the surprise expressed - Lets see Sabena , Swissair , Pan Am , Eastern, TWA, Braniff 1-2-3-4-5 etc etc

Why is a long lived airline any different to an upstart when its badly managed and unionised?


Leif

[Prop Jockey]

Its a shame - the airline seems to be suffering a slow painful death. I remember the days when Malpensa was nothing but Alitalia aircraft, thesedays its an Alitalia ghost town. Perhaps those standing in the way of a solution can compare some then and now pics and reflect on the trend :-(

Cheers

Rich