Alitalia, all about the newco (between bluff and comedy)
The Alitalia newco has not yet been established and the renewal of the layoffs for most of the employees is expected. The point on the chaos Alitalia
The new Alitalia struggles to take off. Indeed, the newco struggles to start the engines: the company has not yet been established, while the renewal of the layoffs for most of the employees is expected.
While waiting for this stalemate to be resolved, the carrier in extraordinary administration risks weakening further and Commissioner Giuseppe Leogrande, who manages all the activities, is ready to ask the government for another 150 million.
Let's go step by step.
COMPANY NOT YET CONSTITUTED
We start from a certainty. Alitalia's newco does not yet exist: the company has not yet been incorporated. Francesco Caio, president, and Fabio Lazzerini, CEO of the group, "nominated" by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, via Facebook, are not yet operational on 29 June 2020.
WHAT DOES STALL BE OWNED
Yet the newco should have already started. The Minister of Economic Development Stefano Patuanelli (M5s) on September 15 said : "I believe that next week may be the right week for the Newco founding decree".
Why does nothing start? It must be said that the new Alitalia can only be established with a decree of the Minister of Economy Roberto Gualtieri (Pd) and also of the Ministry of Transport, led by Paola De Micheli (Pd), by the Minister of Economic Development of Stefano Patuanelli (M5s) and the Ministry of Labor led by Nunzia Catalfo, M5s.
On the board of directors, Il Sole 24 Ore writes, there is no agreement in the majority: "Senator Giulia Lupo (M5S), considered the air transport expert of the Five stars (she is a former hostess), would like to appoint the current board of directors dg Giancarlo Zeni, Leogrande's right-hand man who has been overtaken by the Newco appointments ", but" the relations between Zeni and Lazzerini are very bad, Alitalia's commercial director wanted by the Pd chief delegation minister, Dario Franceschini, as future CEO, therefore Lazzerini does not want Zeni in the new board of directors ”, wrote Gianni Dragoni del Sole.
Not only that: the table also jumped because in the nascent Board of Directors there would be no representation of workers, promised, instead, by Minister Stefano Patuanelli (M5S).
ANOTHER 150 MILLION IS NEEDED
Meanwhile, the stall comes at a cost. And Commissioner Giuseppe Leogrande brought the bill to the Government: Leogrande said that after the 200 million allocated by the government for the damage from Covid-19 he will ask for reimbursement for the entire allocated ceiling, then another 150 million, in order to guarantee the survival of the company until March 2021.
RISK: BET ON THE DOMESTIC MARKET (ALREADY OCCUPIED)
And once the stalemate is resolved, take-off is certainly not guaranteed. The Covid-19 crisis has landed air travel and long-haul routes, in particular. Will the newco therefore aim at the domestic market? It is already taken. "The risk is to start placing oneself in the domestic market and lose any battle against carriers such as Volotea, Wizz Air, EasyJet and of course Ryanair, which offer flights starting from 9 euros between Bergamo and Pantelleria, and starting from 20 euros for Catania and Naples" , we read on Panorama.
NEW CASH INTEGRATION PROCEDURE
Meanwhile, while the new Alitalia still does not exist, the solution is that of a new layoff procedure, the ninth since 2017. Commissioner Leogrande is ready to ask for the extension of the cigs, which expires on October 31, for the whole staff already on hand (approximately 6,830 employees) at least until March 31, 2021.
ROUTES TO COMPETITORS?
And not only. While waiting for the new company to be born and for a new industrial plan to be finalized, the carrier under receivership could, starting from November, according to the Sole 24 Ore , entrust some long-haul routes to other Italian companies in wet lease. The route to the Maldives, for example, could fly with crews and planes of new companies, such as Neos chaired by Lupo Rattazzi.
ALITALIA LEAVES MALPENSA
What is certain is that Alitalia is starting to abandon some airports. Alitalia says goodbye (or goodbye?) To Malpensa, the last Alitalia plane took off from the Lombard airport on Wednesday 30 September, bound for Rome Fiumicino.
In the coming weeks, the company will operate only from Linate, but only short-medium haul flights.
THE PROTEST OF ATTILIO FONTANA
A choice that the president of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana considers "inexplicable".
“From this evening Alitalia leaves Malpensa: flights canceled. For the first time since 1948, the Italian national airline cancels the connections between the capital and the main airport of Lombardy, Northern Italy and the most productive area of the country ", writes the president of the Lombardy Region on Facebook, adding that it is "The economic vision underlying this choice is inexplicable".
"Yet state aid has never been lacking for the national airline, also thanks to the high taxes paid by the Lombards, and I believe that this is an objective fact", complained Fontana, hoping for "a rethinking and a revision of the plan. industrial company of Alitalia ".
TRADE UNIONS IN REVOLT
The choices of the company do not even like the unions for which "the behavior of the Alitalia commissioner management" is "characterized by the absence of confrontation between the commissioner, the general manager and the trade unions", write Filt-Cgil, Fit-Cisl , Uiltrasporti and Ugl Air Transport to Commissioner Leogrande. The acronyms also denounce: "continuous wrong strategic choices in our opinion harmful for the company and favorable to competition".
“We asked Alitalia to set up a control room to allow the launch of an operational and contextual phase with respect to industrial developments, so that it is ready and reactive for its relaunch. Other issues that we have to deal with with the carrier are, for example, monitoring the application of layoffs and smart working for office staff ”, but for now, the unions say, there is no answer.
LOST 20 MILLION A DAY
Waiting for answers and a new recovery plan, however, the loss of the company grows. “Recall that Alitalia lost over 2 million euros a day in the first half of the year,” said Andrea Giuricin, economist and transport expert, on Facebook.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/alitalia-tutto-sulla-newco-tra-bluff-e-commedia/ on Fri, 02 Oct 2020 13:40:48 +0000.