[capetonianm]

A design flaw, gearbox installed back to front, so only 1 reverse gear and 5 forward ones, instead of 5 reverse and 1 forward in case they were attacked from behind!

[Mark Caswell]

Alitalia has today started bankruptcy proceedings, stating that “having acknowledged the serious economic and financial situation of the Company, of the unavailability of the shareholders to refinance, and of the impossibility to find in a short period of time an alternative, has decided unanimously to proceed with the filing for “amministrazione straordinaria” (extraordinary administration) in compliance with the Italian law”.

Flight schedules continue as normal for now.

http://corporate.alitalia.it/en/media/press-releases-sai/2017-05-02.html

[Mark Caswell]

Comment from stakeholder Etihad Airways:

Etihad “disappointed” at Alitalia bankruptcy proceedings

[StephenLondon]

This whole fiasco at Alitalia has made SABENA flash across my mind. I may be showing my age, but did something not too dissimilar happen to SABENA, where pilots voted against the airline and were then rather surprised when it folded? Perhaps this is what should happen to Alitalia. Shut it down. Then start again.

[alainboy56]

As I have said before here many times – Until they move AZ away from Rome and its ‘closed shop’ mentality, it will be forever in the mire. There are very few Italians from any other region flying up front or down the back, they are almost entirely Romans and that is the problem. They refuse to be relocated, so in the late pm flights, AZ are busy positioning full crews to the out-stations with a hotel stay, just so they can bring the 1st flights out in the morning from all the various airports around Italy flying pax to FCO for mainly onward connections The unions know that they have their politicians in Rome by the ‘short and curlies’. This mentality is also rife with ADR the operator at FCO. Its a badly run airport and will never change. Between AZ and ADR they just don’t care and know that the Govt can doing nothing about it (even if they wanted to, as one must remember they always need votes).
I would like to say, base it in Malpensa, near Milano but that is not really viable as shown by Lufthansa, who could not make their model (LH Italia) work and they folded it after a short while. Malpensa is a badly thought out airport (sorry for the pun), its in the middle of nowhere and with insufficient transport links. So there is no answer to the AZ mess, but it will keep going. Italians and their Govt have too much pride to let it fail, with or without EY, it will be re-born (yet) again! I have also mentioned here before, that I hear that a re-unification with AF is being muted as they are both very similar in mentality and couldn’t care less attitude. And as for CDG, does anyone remember a publicity for avoiding a hapless motorist called Reginald Molehusband on British TV 30-40 years ago? No? oh well, anyway the gist of it was that people went out of their way, a long way out of their way, to avoid this motorist, well for me, that just about sums up CDG, what an absolute disaster of a mess it is, and why would anyone want to put themselves through ‘hell’ willingly, by passing CDG and having, for example, a T1 to T2G transfer!

[Edski777]

It is astonishing to see how time after time people are voting against the best interest of a group. In this case the vote of the AZ personnel against the long overdue reorganization of AZ is now leading to the appointment of a trustee to liquidate the company and sell its assets to the highest bidder.
I believe Alainboy56 is right: the mentality at AZ should have changed. Now the employees and unions have won a battle, but ultimately lost the war. It’s a mess. I had some hope when EY stepped in, but they were absolutely unable to turn the tide.

I don’t see AF taking over the AZ remains. KLM is keeping AF afloat and the French unions will block any change as long as they exist. They rather go the Italian route and see AF go down the drain. KLM can support the ludicrous policies and management style at AF for a while, but won’t be able to support the losses at AZ as well.

The only hope for saving the economy of these countries and their airlines is that there is a change in mentality and soon.

At least we can start thinking about a new title for this thread. My suggestion: Alitalia continued to operate…the end

[capetonianm]

A deep rooted sense of entitlement, the result of years of socialism, means that the employees (I deliberately avoid the word workers) of AZ think they will be clothed, housed, fed, and watered by the state. The same will apply to the employees of AF when its day of reckoning comes.

They will see that, as Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

[Raffles99]

I think EY owns the Alitalia slots at Heathrow as part of its previous capital injection, so if it does come back it may not be flying to LHR (which makes it far less likely it will come back).

[LuganoPirate]

I was right. For Etihad it has all ended in tears!!!

While I agree Malpensa is a badly thought out airport, and is really showing its age now, they are trying to improve matters, though security queues remain much too long for Economy/non status passengers.

Transport links are however improving, and the new train line from Lugano to Malpensa should be finished by December. I’ve been past the works and they are really moving on it working day and night. There is now a direct rail link to/from Milan’s main rail station taking about 50 minutes. The train to Milan Cadorna is also good for the main hotels but taxi availability is hit and miss though hotels will send a car for you.

There is excellent and reasonable off airport parking. For 3 months I paid about £100 which I thought was very good value, and they have fast and efficient shuttle services to the terminals.

If transferring from between T1 and 2 there is ViaMilano. It is totally free and transfers your bags from say an Easyjet flight arriving in T2 to an onward flight departing from T1. They even give you a fast track voucher and a few other benefits. I’ve never used it but people I know who have sing its praises.

[FaroFlyer]

Milan Malpensa might be an OK airport, but Rome is still the Capital of Italy. Geographically Rome is Birmingham and Malpensa is arguably either Glasgow or Aberdeen.

Having said that, Germany manages quite well with the transport hubs of MUC and FRA not being in the Capital. Perhaps that will change if the new Berlin airport is ever finished and opened.

[capetonianm]

Having had the misfortune to use both LIN and MXP in the last couple of years, I think both are appallingly dysfunctional, rather like Alitalia, rather like Italy. Charming, but hopelessly inefficient. Comparing them with anything in Germany makes no sense.

[StephenLondon]

What will the EU have to say about ‘amministrazione stradinaria’ vis-a-vis state aid? Anyone know much about that?

[MarcusGB]

So. here we go again.
Bad investment by Etihad that provided Billions of Euros for new Aircraft, an refurbishments of the fleet. Hogan now feel no more investment if the employees and others , will not agree to immediate vast re-structuring.
The Italian Government have put in over 7 Billion Euros alone.
I remember the Alitalia FFP being bought by Etihad though.
But Etihad is also declining on some routes and making extensive cost cutting, obvious on every trip you make now, less benefits, more restrictions, and FFP lessened and tighter. Ground and Air services in every area you can sense cut backs. Emirates are picking up their business on the AUH -MEL route for eg, whilst EY downgrade flights to 777’s putting the other A380 on the Sydney route. Their policies rather rushed in, and take bites out of your First and Business Class travel.

The Alitalia staff have written their own redundancy notices, after a militant stand of all, for nothing.

May i also point put, that KLM does indeed make much of the profit for the KLM / AF Group, and AF most of the losses. However the KLM employees- “Family” as they identify, years ago supported each other with extra unpaid hours, covering all vacancies by pilots and crew working in other new roles and learning, and are now happily expanding. They surge forwards with 5% more profit than expected in first 1/4 figures, beyond expectations.
AF is being put more into low cost model Hop in Europe, and unprofitable flights cut. Some medium haul destinations will be under a new low cost model. Restructuring is happening and the benefits for showing KLM Profit, and Air France Losses.

The KLM/AF group, have no interest in buying a loss making Airline, but like anyone may well pick off in the asset stripping.

Or maybe Etihad will buy Alitalia for a 1 Euro rate?

They are unable to sustain themselves so should really now fade into History. They need over Euros 600 Million to get through the coming days, but the employees would not agree to a re-structuring, so it must now go!
I am sure the low cost Airlines have immediate expansion plans for Italy already.

[IanFromHKG]

My first ever car was a Fiat X1/9, a thoroughly impractical little car that was tremendous fun. It combined all sorts of wonderful elements. Mid-engined, surprisingly large amount of luggage space as a result (storage space under the bonnet and in the boot), a proper targa top (the entire roof came off, and stored sideways under the bonnet), a lusty little 1500cc engine which (thanks to a little tweaking from the previous owners) meant that in a local “orienteering”-style event I was easily able to keep up with my friends in a brand new Toyota MR2 (much to their annoyance), plus pop-up headlights, all in a Ferrari red coat of paint. Which was about all that held it together at the end. It was – temperamental. And quirky. For a 6’3″ chap like me, it was also wholly impractical. It took me two weeks to learn how to get into it without hurting myself, and because virtually all the controls were on column stalks, every time I changed gear at night my left knee turned the headlights off. I had a little garden spray can which I would stick out of the driver window to spray the windscreen whenever the washer wasn’t working (which was most of the time), WD-40 to spray the engine with every time it rained (before starting off, and every time it conked out thereafter on the way – a bit like driving an old Mini, in fact), and a fire extinguisher just in case it caught fire (again – although in fairness all I ever got was lots of smoke, no actual fire). I loved it, and the Memsahib was very taken with it too (probably part of the reason why as a naive young thing she actually agreed to go out with me again!).

However, I digress…

Alitalia. There was a quotation in the first article Alex referenced which really struck me: “Unions had earlier called on shareholders and the government “to avoid any traumatising and irreversible decisions”.”

Huh. The sort of “traumatising and irreversible decisions” that its members made in rejecting what may be the airline’s last chance to survive? That sort of decision? Yes, that would have been worth avoiding…

[AMcWhirter]

On Saturday the Italian govt announced that Alitalia had debts of US$3.3 billion.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-alitalia-debts-idUKKBN1820FI

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