Air France -Klm Italy's Alitalia First-Quarter Net Loss Widens
Italy's Alitalia First-Quarter Net Loss Widens
By Gilles Castonguay
MILAN--Alitalia SpA on Monday reported a wider net loss for the first quarter as it kept burning through cash, highlighting the challenges faced by the industry and the Italian airline's new chief executive.
Alitalia, which got its shareholders to lend it as much as 150 million euros (about $195 million) to help keep it flying early this year, said in a statement its net loss reached 157 million euros ($203 million) from EUR131 million for the same period last year, citing non-recurring items. It didn't describe those items.
Revenue totalled EUR729 million, it said. No comparative figure for the prior year was given, but Alitalia, a quarter of it owned by French-Dutch peer Air France KLM SA (AF.FR), said the amount of revenue generated from every passenger rose 1.2% for the period.
Load factor rose to 70.7% from 68.8%.
Although the overall domestic market fell 11%, Alitalia said its revenue fell by a slower rate of 7.4%, while the amount generated from international flights gained 1.1% and 11.5% from intercontinental flights.
Its net financial debt stood at EUR1.02 billion and available liquidity at EUR159 million by the end of the quarter.
Alitalia has not only had to struggle with a declining domestic market but also heightened competition, with low-cost carrier easyJet Plc (EXJ.LN) starting to offer flights along the lucrative route between Milan and Rome.
At an April meeting, its board named Gabriele Del Torchio as chief executive, assigning him the task of finding a way to make the airline profitable.
He is to present a 2013-16 industrial plan later this year.
Mr. Del Torchio headed Ducati SpA, the premium motorbike company recently purchased by Audi, a unit of Volkswagen AG (VOW.XE).