ROME: Alitalia will lose its operating license if a special administrator making a last-ditch attempt to sell the airline does not present Italy’s aviation authority with a convincing new offer or cost-cutting plan by Thursday.
Following the withdrawal of an Italian rescue bid because of opposition by pilots and cabin crew, the government-appointed administrator made a last attempt yesterday to attract offers, although previous bids to find a foreign buyer have failed. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti acknowledged that “buyers are not queuing up for Alitalia”.
Flights continued as usual but the state-controlled airline faces being grounded, and its assets liquidated, if there is no last-minute decision by dissident unions to accept the job cuts and slimmed-down contracts that the CAI consortium had offered. “Alitalia is flying with a provisional license,” the head of aviation body ENAC, Vito Riggio, told local radio ahead of talks with the airline’s special administrator Augusto Fantozzi yesterday morning.
He said after the meeting that Fantozzi was given until Thursday to present “a report on the company’s prospects, any offers to buy it or a cost-cutting plan” in order to keep its license.
ENAC will then have three days to evaluate the response, but Fantozzi himself told reporters: “If my report does not satisfy the authority, I will seek the suspension of the license.”
Suffering from the high fuel prices and an economic downturn that have hit the airline sector globally, Alitalia has been on the brink of collapse for years as political interference and labor unrest bled it of cash and caused it to pile up debt. Berlusconi, who made an election vow to rescue the airline, said this weekend no foreign airline would step in and that the national airline may be doomed to bankruptcy.