Their bluff was called. Like certain posters on this thread, they assumed there would be another bailout.

Already 8.000.000.000 euros, yes you read correctly 8 billion euros as disclosed today by the news, poured by governments over 2 decades;

Squandering taxpayer money, just to avoid social and political unrest. Years ago authorities and unions snatched a scheme which allowed unprecedented unemployment benefits of 80% of salaries for 7 years for a large part of the staff to be laid off..

And here they come (Today) with the usual loan (Taxpayer money) of 600.000.000 euros which will never be paid back, just to postpone the inevitable fate..

Sad for those, and there are and were many, quailfied professionals who soon or later will pay dearly. Sad for an airline which was Italy's pride for more than half a century.

Nepotism which is the leprosy of Italy, political wrongdoings known to undermine any enterprise in the country will prevent a possible recovery, add wrong strategical decisions, failure to adapt to a changing environment, and the fate is sealed, but when will that happen ?

In the meantime, there are pressures to find a buyer within 6 months, to handover this mess, so as to involve a foreign operator in the quest for implementing those impossible reforms..

Will there be any interest ?

80% of Aircraft are EI- flagged i.e. Lease co.

LH has said that it isn't interested in Alitalia:
http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN17T0ZZ
Probably not interested in returning to Italy either after LH Italia either.

Plus 1.8 Billion from Etihad, let's not forget those.

I think expansion of Vueling and opening of a LEVEL long haul base are more likely ...

My sympathy for ****** is very limited.

RAT5 and T1grm

I did debate for some minutes as to which waya round to put Af/KL but then do BA and IB have joint ownership or is it a hidden BA take over.

I think the realpolitic of it is AF is more important than KL because France is bigger than the Netherlands and I dont thinl the Dutch care about status like we do in Uk, as long as they have the money and the wider Eu and financial advantages of what is a pretty powerful group they will just keep quiet.

Not an expert on these things but since the 'joining' both seem to have benefited in some ways from route rationalisation, financing and fleet development and have managed to keep two distinct and established brands .

The thing is what will happen to service and fares in Europe if we end up with an airline map that comprises
AF/KL BA/IB LH uber Alles plus Ryanair and Ezy

We effectively already have that with One World, Sky Team, Star Alliance, EZ and FR. Europe is to all intents and purposes dominated by 5 groups/alliances. I think we'll just see further consolidation within those groups/alliances. I think 5 big players is a good number to maintain competition and wouldn't be too worried if IAG (for example) ended up owning all the EU based airlines in the One World alliance. All IMHO of course :)

Well, i don't think they have any interest whatsoever into owning airberlin, which is after all still a oneworld member, even though they fly a third of their aircraft for Austrian and Eurowings.

it seems that everyone forgets old Alitalia fact :
Every Monday bankruptcy,every Friday they are still there.
:}

How much money can this airline suck up? Where does it all go?

As much as you can throw at her, faster than you can throw it at her apparently.

Good question.
Less than a year ago (6 July 2016) upper mgmt was saying that they were losing 500.000 EUR per day. Half a mil every day!
Empty planes and unprofitable routes, perhaps?

Is that so? Based on Olympic Airways experience it had more to do with full flights not being profitable due to high costs?

Olympic and Alitalia same desease:
NEPOTISM

taxpayer money squandered by governments does wonders, it's magic,

Personally I think that all the low cost carriers Ryanair, EasyJet and vueling will all base extra aircraft in Italy ASAP so that when AZ does go there is others already waiting to carry there pax.

Is there many routes that are not currently serve by other airlines or does AZ have competition on most routes

Thanks BPI. Very clever.
Cheered me up no end.

..and all this under the watchful eye of IATA, the European Union, the World Trade Federation, NAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement..

button push ignored

i think you have missed out the bit where LH collapses and Aeroflot take over Czech LOT Wizz Tarom and the US 3 divest BA and AF and 20 years later retrench back to the states