The 52 airplanes of Ita Airways, the new Italian flag airline that took off today, are less than half of those of the old Alitalia, the “slots” (ie the landing and take-off rights at airports) have been reduced in proportion, and the cutting of workers is even more brutal: from 10,500 to 2800, of which 1550 sailors and 1250 on land. The prospect, however, is to go back to 5750 by 2025. In parallel, the number of aircraft will increase: in four years they will become 105, and a pre-contract has already been signed with Airbus to buy 28 aircraft, and with the company Air Lease Corporations for rent another 31.
Are these plans realistic? Several analysts are skeptical. Gregory Alegi, professor at the aeronautical academy and former professor of airline management, stigmatizes that the company is reborn from its ashes with some of the structural defects of the old one, including the ambition to do everything (intercontinental, international and short-haul flights) as if it were one of the greats on the planet, but with grossly inadequate means and no ability to select efforts. Another analyst, Antonio Bordoni (professor at Luiss University), observes that “in terms of personnel and number of aircraft, the new Alitalia is smaller than the AirOne which years ago was incorporated by the old Alitalia. I don’t know how he can think of challenging Air France or British Airways or Lufthansa ”. In fact, we are already thinking of an alliance, which, however, cannot be equal.
Alegi insists: “The long haul is certainly the most profitable, and in theory it would be worth aiming for it, but the 6 planes with which Alitalia would like to leave are too few, and it is a mystery how in two years we intend to bring them to 13, which (in any case) would remain few. When you spend years making cuts, without ever investing, and withdrawing from the air routes, then it is very difficult to win them back “. On the other hand, adds Alegi, “the industrial plan of the new Alitalia does not explain how it is planned to make short routes profitable, which suffer from competition from low-cost airlines and high-speed trains”; even a connection like the one between Milan and Rome, which was once a goose that lays golden eggs, is now a shadow of what it once was.
But then, if the long haul deserves the thumbs down and the short one, what room is left for Alitalia? The analyst Antonio Bordoni believes that a valid, tested and profitable model is “that of the Greek company Aegean Airlines, which risked bankruptcy between 2010 and 2012, absorbed Olympic, and then found its role on European routes. and the Mediterranean basin, completely excluding the intercontinental ones “. Moreover, such a choice would be consistent with what has been said for years on Alitalia’s raison d’etre: every time an exit from the crisis was hypothesized through a sale to Air France or Lufthansa, there was an outcry because it was objected that in foreign hands Alitalia could not fulfill its function as a collector of tourist flows directed towards the beautiful country; now, if you look at Aegean Airlines’ network of connections, you can see that it offers just that, that is, an effective convergence of routes from the rest of Europe to Greece, albeit giving up North America, China, etc., because there are no means . Bordoni believes that “for the new Alitalia the Aegean regional model is the only sustainable one”, and that it can promise well “also thanks to the greater tourist, economic and demographic potential of Italy compared to Greece”.
Even in this case, however, Alitalia would start with different handicaps compared to Aegean. The Greek company was passive for only three years, Alitalia instead for several decades (a worldwide unicum) and has suffered repeated bankruptcies in both public and private hands; Alitalia is now reduced to just 12.5% of the Italian air market (2019 figure, the last pre-Covid year) and then the Aegean planes in Greek domestic flights do not suffer from the competition of high-speed rail, because the territory is almost all insular or in any case very jagged and difficult to connect with trains.
Yet there was a period, not in prehistoric times but in the early 1990s, when Alitalia fared better than Air France and Lufthansa. And again in 2000 KLM (independent, not linked to Af) proposed an equal merger to Alitalia: two airlines of comparable size (indeed, the largest was Alitalia) with their two respective “hubs” (connecting airports), nor so close as to compete with each other nor so far that they cannot coordinate. But nothing came of it, because the Italian hub had to be the new Malpensa, sacrificing Fiumicino, and this provoked a political and trade union outcry in Rome, which led to the negotiations being terminated. At the time, the writer interviewed the number one of KLM, Leo van Wijk, who burst into a thunderous laugh commenting on the way in which Italy managed Alitalia.