Rome, 9th September - "This is the last call for Alitalia, the real catastrophe for me would be its closure".
The Secretary General of Italy's CISL union, Raffele Bonanni, speaking on news programme 'Mattino Cinque' outlined his union's position in the talks over the flag-bearing airline.
"The pilots are right to ask, alongside us, that their wages be the same as those paid by Air France or British Airways and not those paid by Ryanair. I hope that this is their objective: for my part I want to say that we are clear: no privileges, but no harassment either". For the CISL Secretary General, some issues remain open around international routes and the number of planes: "too few", in that they are being reduced from a possible load of 35 million passengers to 20 million. "This is a true error", the union man concluded.
Five of nine unions representing workers at Alitalia yesterday rejected new productivity-linked contracts offered by a consortium of Italian investors seeking to rescue the carrier. By the way, are Alitalia pilots' wages really much worse than those at Ryanair?