Alitalia
 

For long years, AZ has been the basket case the italian government would like to throw public money at to make the problem go away for some time but the EU Commission is saying: BASTA (no more). AZ have been allowed 3 last times already, the end result: it's losing € 2 Million/day and the less they operate, less they lose. Very nice, no? :=

Found this ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6905661.stm

The Emirates recruitment team are on standby to fly out to Rome....

Does not matter who is on stand by to fly in. The first thing that needs to be done is for the Italians to step back and accept that may be foreigners know better. Pride usually comes before a fall and it looks like this company may be about to suffer a serious fall :ouch:

I think the days for Alitalia are counted. Basically other airlines were interested, but demanded pretty much free hand, unhindered from labor unions. The Italian government cannot promise that unions accept cuts in labor, actually I would bet they go on strike (seems to be some kind of pleasure for them).

Alitalia gets less attractive each month, and other airlines (Lufthansa, AF-KLM, Airone) are happily cannibalizing its market. The last time I looked its overall revenues were down to one billion per quarter (they publish figures on the net).

And unions will achieve they final goal: 100% spare time for the majority of its members. :ugh:

Italy warns Alitalia faces liquidation if no sale
 

Hmm, I guess Ryanair will soon have a sudden influx of Italian accents on the airwaves.

If Mick couldn't buy Aer Lingus, what price Alitalia. His planes were painted with Arriverdeci Alitalia. What sweet pleasure it would give him. Did he not say he wanted to be the biggest player in Italy (and other parts of the planet as well), and did he not hint at using Aer Lingus's longhaul AOC. Hm??

If Barings was worth only 1 GBP, what price Alitalia for 1 euro.

If you want to drink some beer, you really needn't to buy the entire brewery. So FR or others wouldn't have to purchase an originally-structured Alitalia, they could buy some best parts of a bankrupt (and get some workforce without their labour unions). And still, the Italian market is undoubtedly a very tasty tidbit, don't you think? :p

I had nice GVA-MLN-TLV-ROM-GVA trip with
AlItalia recently and like it very much. What will
happend with my ~6K MilleMiglia points if the company
change hands?

Thanks in advance.

With it's geographic position, worldwide reputation for design, fashion and food, I've always been surprised that the Italians haven't been able to build a world beating airline around their position.

Do they still pick up crews from home in company transport and drive them to/from the airport?

Don't sound like a change of hands...sounds like no hands at all. Your points will join the pile along with Wardair and Worldways. Shame though, lots of super nice people in there that I've met over the years.

Is there a time scale for this liquidation? I've just booked a 10 day holiday with my girlfriend on the 2nd August, might put a downer on things if we cant even get there! I guess theres no way of getting a refund either...d'oh

This airline has staggered on for many moons and might well do so for a bit longer. What seems highly likely is that they will join Sabena and Swiss as carriers that failed to reconstruct themselves for the 21st Century. There is no telling whether it will fold in one week or three months or ...

There will probably be a bid from an Italian consortium hurriedly put together to keep it Italian. The govt will have to decide on the short and long term options, in the same way that they have failed to consider them in the past. :hmm:

Why are the Alitalia staff so intransgent when it comes to negotiation?

Do they really believe that we are still in the heady days of the 80's and 90's when airlines charged the earth and staff could earn a good living?

They need a reality check if they really cannot face the job queue and need to appreciate that since 9/11 most EU carriers have restructured and survived , profitably.

This sounds like the Eastern Airlines showdown where part of their workforce refused new T&C's in the face of bankruptcy - and then lost absolutely everything :rolleyes:
Each to their own, but would be a shame .............

Feel bad for the thousands of Alitalia pilots and crew members. I guess Ryanair, Air One and other local carriers like Eurofly and Myair will pick up the crews as they expand to fill in the void.

I wonder which airlines will pick up the bigger aircraft like the 777s and 763s?

Yes but name me one Italian multinational apart from Fiat (some would dispute even that one)? The problem with the Italian economy in general is that they lack big multinational corps that form the basis of an airline's business travel (look at what happened to Air Canada when Nortel dropped off the face of the earth).
It is one of the big differences with France, which shares its high union membership and reluctance to change but has Total, BNP Paribas, Michelin etc,

admiral ackbar:

Yes but name me one Italian multinational apart from Fiat (some would dispute even that one)?

Pirelli, Barilla, Ferrero?

So who's the Pope going to fly with now??

Angels of course!

@Tolsti
 

Will be done by VATIKAN-AIR, here are the hosties

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...6/3b01479r.jpg

Feel bad for the thousands of Alitalia pilots and crew members. I guess Ryanair, Air One and other local carriers like Eurofly and Myair will pick up the crews as they expand to fill in the void.


Why???
A huge part of Alitalia's problems are down to their staff, aircrew, engineering and ground living for the past numbers of years with their heads in the sand.
Reality, in terms of T&C does not feature in the Alitalia employees' mindset. They still cling to the 60's T&C with nonsensical restrictions on just about every aspect of their jobs.
The Italian government has, year on year, bailed out this white elephant and the sooner it is allowed to die the better for all working in aviation.

The Alitalia staff are in for some real eye-openers if they move to other operators - but know doubt the Italian government (except that it is you and me who will pay as the money will come from the EU) will fund huge payoffs so as to ease the pain for their employees.

So who's the Pope going to fly with now??

Virgin of course!!

Once again it's the unions that have caused the airline no end of headaches. They've taken it from a position of a company's most valuable asset is it's employees to one where those same staff are now burdenous. It's simple economics nay common sense that a company has to trade freely in order to generate the money with which to pay salaries. Besides if Alitalia can't help themselves then why should anyone else. The management should have taken on the unions and let them strike it would only affect you if you makind a profit, otherwise like Alitalia they'd probably save money by not operating all their services!

From the opposite end the Italian politicians can barely get their own act together so what guiding hand can they offer Alitalia? The union friendly laws cannot be easily changed as they'll no doubt affect all other industries too, therefore I see no hope at the end of the day. As for other airlines taking up the crews and staff, well quite frankly I doubt it'll happen in any significant numbers. Those same employees will bring their preconceptions of grandeure with them to their new employers and cause comotions and problems before eventually leaving anyway. Though I doubt many wouldn't want to leave Italy anyway. There'll always be thopse professionals in Alitalia that will go on to better and brighter things but not all.....

Let's spare a few moments to think of those Alitalia employees OUTSIDE of Italy, who in most cases have not been involved in the industrial disputes in Italy, but instead have had to deal with the results. It would be hard to find a group of workers so skilled in crisis handling. And they aren't employed on Italian T&C either.

Companies like this need to close down so that new ideas may fruitation from the decay of the old Alitalia and they can finaly enter 21st century. Otherwise the consequences will be alot worse, the word Ryanair springs to mind .... oh dear :E

"Yes but name me one Italian multinational apart from Fiat (some would dispute even that one)?"

AGIP/Eni/Saipem

All these companies you have mentionned are large at best, I am talking about huge companies like Alcan, Bombardier, Cisco, Tesco, Carrefour (Random selection).

How many Italian banks are world leaders for example? You have 2 in France alone, won't even talk about the UK.

These are the people that fill your front cabins, this has only served to exarcebate the union problems. Trust me, Air Canada unions are nothing to sneeze at either.

We should resist the temptation of rapidly extending this thread towards the national economy of Italy and keep it Alitalia....

However I agree I recall AGIP as a sponsor of the Ferrari F! team back in the 80s but they're not multinational just largish. Fiat on the other hand is one brand that springs to mind and quite frankly so should Alitalia. My cousin flew out to Milan a number of times recently and as a very frequent traveller was unimpressed each an d every team he flew with. His experiences seem to be illustrative of Alitalia overall corporate problems. This is a shame because I'm sure that Alitalia could do a great job if they escaped the leash of the unions. Look at BA back in the 70s and then without significant union interfence performed exceptionally in the 90s before the downward slide further compounded with the usual union 'kicking in' in recent years. Unions have a delicate balancing act they continuously fail to achieve.

So, how many Fiats are sold in the USA (largest car market)? I have seen with my eyes and all know it: thousands of AZ employees (mainly office staff) come to work once a month: to collect the pay-slip. It's always been the voting machine: I give U the job, U vote for me, va bene??:D

It will start immediately after the first fuel truck driver would ask for cash pre payment. (That's how it started with SR). The rest is a matter of a few hours. No credit, no flying.

admiral ackbar:

You might have forgotten that IVECO is part of Fiat, too.

Anyway, another highly successful Italian MNC is the Mafia.:D Don't tell me they're not big...

"However I agree I recall AGIP as a sponsor of the Ferrari F! team back in the 80s but they're not multinational just largish."

But they're owned by Eni which IS Italy's LARGEST company and which is kinda multinational...70 countries do you?:hmm:

You are trying very hard not to see my point which I will make one last time before shutting up. I am not saying that Italy has no multinationals but that for its population, the number of multinationals that make the global 500 is very small. Take a look at the following website and compare Italy to just about every other large western economy and you will see that their global companies are very few.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...untries/I.html

By the way I'm not trying to bash Italy, I am just nuancing that there may be more factors than just the unions at work. I also fully agree that it was used for political cronyism and vote buying, this poor airline never had a chance in todays environment. I feel sorry for the people who will lose their jobs.

I am not saying that Italy has no multinationals but that for its population, the number of multinationals that make the global 500 is very small.

and the point is?
so what if italy were to have a high number of fortune 500 global organisations? would that mean that alitalia should be in a position to operate a profitable domestic network, overcome the power of unions, strike action and the legacy of a state controlled organisation that knows little or nothing about private industry?
so what if alitalia is not a global player, it has cultural relevance, if only at least within the italian domestic market. not all airlines aspire to be global players and indeed when was alitalia ever a global player?

I give up...you people are trying to be obtuse. Have fun running your other companies into the ground...

ad. ackbar, after having worked and lived in Italy (north) for years, I have given up on Italy and gone to work elsewhere. The only airlines able to prosper in Italy are non-italian. Speaks volumes, even AZ flies the non-italian registered planes for some reason (or other) and I do agree that the name of the organisation(s) that function well in Italy starts with M. :ugh: The usual comment one gets after a complaint is: "if U don't like it go elsewhere", never mind the rules and common logic. So, the old AZ is dead, long live new AZ.

EI-RB
Your comments may well apply to some of the staff in Italy, but there is absolutely no cause to place a slur on the Alitalia staff working outside Italy, often in difficult conditions, and certainly not on Italian contracts.

As someone who works on the front facing customer line of an airline.... I'd like to express my sympathy to anyone in the same position working for AZ.
At the end of the day its leaving someone without a job, and unable to provide for families or even the person in question.
I just hope that there will be a "new" alitalia created, or the crews and staff at AZ find employment with other carriers ASAP.
I would hate to think that my job was on the line... and then there is people on here (half of which dont have a clue what they are gossiping about, nor work for an airline.... they are just mear spotters) who are slating the company and its crews for "burrying their head in the sand"
Come on people, get a grip? its peoples lives we are bitching about here!!!