Alitalia: Rinascimento o Morte

摘要

FOUR YEARS ago, well before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Alitalia ran out of cash and was put into short-term emergency administration. It was given a government loan of €900m, to be repaid within six months. The idea was to allow the administrators time to find a buyer for the financially-challenged Italian flag-carrier. And Alitalia has forever been financially challenged. As the chart below shows, it has reported an operating profit in only two of the past 25 years (1997 and 1998) and a net profit (benefiting from asset sales) in only four. It could have been good timing to find a buyer: the industry was profitable and on a continued upswing; and there seemed to be a lot of interest with suitors such as easyJet, Lufthansa and even Ryanair. Air France-KLM, having had its fingers burnt in previous restructurings, bowed out of the race but got its partner Delta involved - at the time on a roll of buying minority stakes in airlines round the world (including Air France-KLM) - to keep the airline in the Skyteam alliance and their immunised transatlantic joint venture.