Alitalia has 3 months to avoid Bankruptcy

Published: 10/10/06

Struggling state carrier Alitalia is facing the worst crisis in its long history, and has been given just 3 months to restructure its operations to avoid bankruptcy. The carrier, which was partially floated recently in order to raise much needed capital is still struggling to compete with low cost rivals, and the government is finally losing patience.

Italian prime minister Romano Prodi claimed that the situation at Alitalia was “totally out of control”, and that the airline had until January to find a solution. He refuted the idea of providing state hand outs to help the airline, stating that it was useless to throw money at the carrier when it had no strategy.

The airline, which is 49.9% owned by the government has lost some 72 million euros in the last 3 years, which while not such a huge loss as some of the large American carriers is still enough to put the future of the airline and its staff in jeopardy.

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