Published on : 3/17/2020 – 11:08Modified : 3/17/2020 – 11:06
–
Rome (AFP)
The Italian government has announced that it intends to nationalize the airline Alitalia, which has been in great difficulty for years, as part of emergency economic measures taken in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Council of Ministers “plans the constitution of a new company entirely controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, or controlled by a company with majority public participation, even indirect”, specifies a press release published on the night of Monday at Tuesday.
The government does not specify the deadlines or other more concrete terms of this project to nationalize Alitalia.
According to media reports, Rome has planned a global envelope of 600 million euros for the entire national aviation sector, in which Alitalia represents the lion’s share.
A new call for expressions of interest to buy Alitalia had been published less than two weeks ago, on March 5, and interested companies or funds had until March 18 to make themselves known, according to a document published on the site. the company.
Alitalia has accumulated losses for years and had to be placed under the supervision of the administration in 2017. Rome has been looking for one or more buyers, without success.
The Italian public railway group, Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), which tried for a time to form a consortium to save Alitalia, announced in early January that it had thrown in the towel.
Contacts were made with the American Delta, the German Lufthansa and the Italian manager of motorways and airports Atlantia (family of Luciano Benetton).
But Lufthansa had indicated in January that it did not want to invest for the moment in Alitalia, stressing that the latter needed a deep restructuring.
Delta, for its part, had said it was ready to invest 100 million euros and take 10% of the capital.
Alitalia, faced with extremely fierce competition from low-cost companies, cannot really compete with the other traditional companies either, for lack of sufficient size, whereas a major movement of concentration has taken place in recent years. It loses around 300 million euros per year.
The former national airline thus transported only 22 million passengers in 2018, compared to 91 million for Easyjet, 142 million for Ryanair and some 180 for Lufthansa and Delta Airlines.
In Italy, its market share has leveled off at 14%, far behind Ryanair’s 25%.
© 2020 AFP
–
