Union Calls for Alitalia Decision Post-Election
Airwise News, 4/3/2008 (excerpted)
Italy should decide on Alitalia's future after this month's general election, a union leader said, after the state-controlled airline's sale to Air France-KLM fell apart and it teetered ever closer to bankruptcy.
Luigi Angeletti, general secretary of the UIL, told Canale 5 TV news on Thursday [April 3] the carrier should not be put under emergency administration and any decisions about its future left until after the vote on April 13-14.
Air France-KLM abandoned talks with unions hostile to the takeover late on Wednesday [April 2], although it said it still believed in its takeover plan, which includes 2,100 job cuts.
The UIL union had walked out of talks with Air France-KLM on Monday [March 31], saying negotiations before the election were futile.
The airline's board was due to meet on Thursday [April 3]. Its chairman Maurizio Prato quit on Wednesday [April 2] saying the company was cursed.
A cabinet meeting is also expected to discuss developments on Thursday after Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said the alternative to Air France-KLM was emergency administration.
The future of the airline, in which the state holds 49.9 percent, has become a key issue in the final stretch of the election campaign, and outgoing Prime Minister Romano Prodi said unions had made a grave mistake in breaking off talks.
Air France-KLM is the world's biggest airline by revenues, dwarfing Alitalia, but its interest in the Italian airline is based on the lucrative route from Rome to the country's financial capital, Milan.
When asked whether he believed Air France-KLM had definitely walked away from its takeover bid, Angeletti replied: "I don't think so."
Newspapers on Thursday speculated that the government might seek a compromise with unions or search for a way to keep the carrier flying until after the elections.
Alitalia has enough funds to last until June, La Repubblica calculated.