Here are the last steps for Alitalia
What not to do on Alitalia. The intervention of Salvatore Santangelo
The climate of the relationship between the Italian government and the EU commission on the Alitalia case now seems hot.
The suspicion that Brussels is following a line of favor to maintain the status quo in continental air transport is widespread among commentators, trade unions, politicians and a part – albeit a minority – of national public opinion.
Squeezed between numerous fronts, the Italian government appears to be stalled on the issue of the national carrier. The need to approve the post covid “Next generation EU” national recovery plan is certainly the priority.
The exercise of a more authoritative role than in the past in the direction of EU policies is an opportunity that the European political situation offers to Italy and which it would be criminal not to try to ride.
The national community is traversed by tumultuous pressures from the numerous constituencies devastated by the pandemic and lockdowns, little interested in the Alitalia issue and much more effective in orienting national public opinion.
The company's rebirth project is uncertain, smoky, torn between conflicting points of view, expressed by every commentator and interested party in a cacophony that adds confusion to the uncertainties of the project and the aversion of competitors.
Few politicians approach the issue with a long and systemic view, many carry it out in the mere key of the search for emotional consensus. There is no doubt that, for the Government, facing the clash with the EU over Alitalia may appear to be a useless waste of energy that risks dispersing from other important priorities.
In short, as often in the past, the flag company is an earthenware vase among considerably more robust vases. Nevertheless, the doubt remains that abandoning the company to its fate is a mistake. Yet the experts do not get a clear and precise indication of what is still good in decocted Alitalia.
There are no indications on the evolution of the competitive framework and on the possible new strategic positioning that the company could pursue. The narrated plan is poor in analysis of strengths and weaknesses, opportunities to be seized and critical issues to be prevented.
It is an asphyxiated project in terms of the proposed industrial sizing, obsolete in identifying the strategic assets on which to leverage, worried about the Linate slots, already old in 1998 when the visionary Joint Venture project with KLM broke on them. Devoid of any reading of the technological innovations proposed by the builders industry. Unaware of any attempt to combine a vector of the future in the context of the renewed attention to environmental issues, vigorously relaunched by the declarations of the new White House, which all European actors seem to align with, and now even Russia and China.
A management still inspired by the business models of the 90s seems eager above all to be able to sit at the table of lavish remuneration, rather than inclined to carry out a business. Ready to compromise himself – once more – on the cuts in activities and staff, instead of fighting for a massive revival of national employment in the sector, in all areas of great value desertified by over twenty years of supine retreat.
Proposing a company of 45 aircraft perched on Linate, a symbol of an ancient Milan to drink, a veritable social archeology, is the sign of a definitive national defeat in this sector. As important as it is, even strategic in the words of many, a responsible national government that looks to the future, but which has the obligation to manage the present, cannot engage itself in an endless rearguard battle devoid of any hope.
If we are at the last hour, well, have the courage to face it with audacity and creativity or, in the absence of this, with the dignity that even a person condemned to death is called to express in the last steps that the judgment or fate has assigned him. .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/ultimi-passi-per-alitalia/ on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 05:03:30 +0000.