Glad it worked out.

ENAC, the Italian version of the FAA today gave Alitalia until this Thurday September 25th to come up with a "realistic" plan involving new financing or their operating license will be revoked. Things look very bleak...

Hope this helps,
Andre

Alitalia really is a cat with nine lives (if not more)!

CGIL, the largest union to oppose the offer by the CAI consortium to take over a large portion of Alitalia's assets and staff, has now caved in and signed the agreement authorizing 3'250 redundancies out of just under 16'000 employees (so about 20% of current staff). The "only" remaining roadblocks are the pilot and flight attendant unions...

In any event ENAC has made clear that Alitalia's license will not be revoked in the coming days weeks after all.

TBC

Hope this helps,
Andre

The pilot union agreed to the deal over the weekend, so this leaves only flight attendent unions still holding out the negotiation.

Once the unions are on board, they can start negotiation with AF-KLM or LH to take a minority stake in the "new Alitalia".

I'm still a bit sceptical about the risk of wildcat strikes and more long-term, if the new Alitalia can really stop bleeding cash outflow (esp as they made concessions to the pilots union).

Never predict

When this all started, Italy was the developed world's great example of mis-government, and Alitalia the great example of what happened if governments got anywhere near running things.

A few months on, Alitalia management looks a model of prudence compared to some private US and UK banks. And Alitalia unions paragons of far-seeing altruism compared to the upper echelons of our bankers.

Perhaps we should have asked Alitala to run a few mortgage books. Their safety record's a great deal better than Lehman Bros. And buying an Alitalia ticket six months ago looks to have been a wiser investment than AIG or Halifax shares.

LOL flanneruk!

That said, if one compares apples to apples, Alitalia shareholders have been basically wiped out, while AIG policyholders are also doing OK.

The comparison to Lehman is striking (pun intended) however.