Alitalia, here are the goals and dreams of Ita Airways

15 October 20213 years ago babelfish

Here are the fleet and personnel, objectives, uncertainties, skepticisms and analysts' comments on Ita Airways

Alitalia, the Italian national airline founded in 1946, has ceased operations: the last flight, from Cagliari to Rome-Fiumicino, was on Thursday evening. Its place was taken by Ita Airways, which bought the brand for 90 million euros. The company is owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

THE NEW NAME

The name Ita Airways was presented today by the managing director Fabio Lazzerini , who described it as “a name that looks ahead, looks to the future”. The same colors of Alitalia have been maintained in the logo: Lazzerini explained that the purchase of the old brand "reflects" the desire to "not waste a value".

THE QUESTION OF THE ALITALIA BRAND

The president of Ita Airways, Alfredo Altavilla , said that "the 90 million we spent" for the purchase of the Alitalia brand "allow us to manage the transition to this splendid livery in an orderly manner".

Even if Ita Airways operates under a different name, the purchase of the Alitalia brand – explained Altavilla – guarantees "an orderly transition towards the new liveries, which is an operation that will last for months". At least for the moment, Ita's planes will look the same as Alitalia's. In addition to this, the brand was purchased to "keep it as the heritage of brands that can be used for marketing initiatives".

"I have always said that 290 million was an unrealistic figure", continued Altavilla, referring to the sum requested by the commissioners of Alitalia for the purchase of the brand by Ita. It was too high a price even for the European Commission, which estimated it at around 110 million.

FLEET AND STAFF

Ita Airways owns a fleet of 52 aircraft (against Alitalia's 118 at the time of the extraordinary administration) and 2,800 employees (Alitalia's were 10,500): the goal is to increase the workforce by a thousand units in 2022 and to reach 5750 in 2025.

Of the 2800 workers in the company, 1250 are on the staff and 1550 are on the navigation staff. 70 per cent of the hires come from Alitalia (mainly flight personnel), the remaining 30 per cent from the market.

THE OPERATIONAL BREAK EVEN

President Altavilla stated that the company aims to reach the operational break even (ie the "breakeven point" that allows to cover the costs incurred) in the "first half" of 2023.

COLLABORATION ONLY WITH ITALIAN COMPANIES

Altavilla stressed that Ita Airways will work “only with Italian companies. All the vehicles and cars that we will use for service will only be cars produced in Italy ”. The choice is due to the fact that the company is owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, "and therefore [of] the Italian taxpayers," said the president.

The marketing director, Giovanni Perosino, spoke of Ita Airways' "vision" to offer its passengers an "Italian experience" through partnerships with Italian companies in the food or textile sector. As for the uniforms, he anticipated that the company is in contact "with a very important Italian brand, which is a dream for us".

THE SLOTS

The managing director Lazzerini said he had taken "many counters" from the European Commission and that the issue of slots in airports "has damaged us a lot".

As explained in Start Magazine by Marco Foti , “low-cost carriers have started to sit down at the table for the assignment of Italian slots. The renunciation of 15% of the slots owned at Milan Linate and 57% of those of Rome Fiumicino is in fact one of the conditions imposed by the Brussels authorities, together with the cutting of the fleet and the renunciation of the Millemiglia loyalty program, to mark a clear discontinuity with the old management and give the green light to the new ITA ".

RELATIONS WITH TRADE UNIONS

Altavilla said he regretted "not having arrived at the departure of Ita Airways with an agreement made" with the unions regarding the contract, "but I am absolutely confident that the important steps forward made in the last few days will allow us to get back to the table soon" .

A PARTNER FOR ITA AIRWAYS?

Altavilla also stated that Ita Airways "was not born to be a stand-alone operator forever" because it would be "an unrealistic goal". However, it is not clear what the partner company could be: Altavilla said only that he was "agnostic" in this regard and that he was looking "in any direction, wherever there is the opportunity to create value for Ita".

UGO ARRIGO'S COMMENT ON THE "ACCORDION" INDUSTRIAL PLAN

Ugo Arrigo, economist and transport expert, explained in Start Magazine that the industrial plan of Ita “accordion-style (first the company is drastically reduced and immediately afterwards it starts to grow again) has never been seen in an air carrier”. Arrigo therefore wonders why Ita is leaving with only 52 aircraft – it is not the European Union that imposes it – if, however, the goal is to return to 110.

Why such a small number, if it is not Europe that asks it and if it intends to return to 110?

"The strategy 'We halve today because demand is halved and later we double again and go back to the levels of the old Alitalia because demand, doubling, will return to pre-Covid levels'", writes Arrigo, "in fact it only works if the question is predicted correctly. Otherwise it goes off course. The hypothesis ”, he continues,“ that the dimensions chosen are proportional to the demand expected on the market seems to be confirmed by slide 76 of the December plan. From it it is inferred that the forecasting framework of ITA was built on the basic forecasting scenario of October 2020 of IATA, the global association of air carriers, applied to the routes operated by ITA. In this scenario (called baseline review) the expected traffic is given in the current year 2021 to 50% of the previous year 2019, in 2022 to 71%, in the following 2023 to 86%, to finally reach the full recovery of 100% in the 2024. Did these forecasts of a year ago turn out to be realistic, or overly pessimistic? ”.

THE SKEPTICISM OF ALEGI

La Stampa reports the opinion of Gregory Alegi, historian and expert in aeronautical issues, according to which Ita Airways inherits "some of the structural defects of the old [Alitalia], including the ambition to do everything (intercontinental, international and short-haul flights) as if it were one of the greats on the planet, but with gravely inadequate means and no ability to select efforts ”.

“The long range”, he explains, “is certainly the most profitable, and in theory it would be worthwhile to aim for it, but the planes with which Ita starts are too few. On the other hand, the industrial plan does not explain how it is planned to make short routes profitable, which are subject to competition from low-cost airlines and high-speed trains ”.

WHAT BORDONI THINK (LUISS)

La Stampa also records the skepticism of Antonio Bordoni, a lecturer at the Luiss Business School for issues relating to the Aviation sector, who points out that "in terms of personnel and number of aircraft, the new Ita is smaller than the AirOne which years ago was incorporated from the old Alitalia. I don't know how he can think of challenging Air France or British Airways or Lufthansa ”.

Ita Airways could then aim for a model similar to that of the Greek company Aegean Airlines, "which risked bankruptcy between 2010 and 2012, absorbed Olympic, and then found its role on European and Mediterranean routes. , completely excluding the intercontinental ones ". According to Bordoni, a regional model similar to that of Aegean, which exploits the Italian tourist attractiveness, is “the only sustainable one” for the heir of Alitalia.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/ita-airways-numeri-obiettivi-analisi/ on Fri, 15 Oct 2021 13:57:25 +0000.