ROMA – A few more hours of apparent calm before starting a week that promises to be very hot on the Alitalia front. The company in extraordinary administration no longer has the resources to go on its own and the knot of March wages paid only half and late, begins to heat up the category. Not to mention the plan that is being developed to get Alitalia-Ita off the ground by the summer, the new company that is negotiating tightly with Europe in order to collect the green light from Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
Technical discussions with the Union will continue next week and there are two main issues to be addressed: Europe is ready to sanction our country for “bridge” loans that have never been repaid (1.3 billion euros since 2017) but are not excluding other insights on the 3 billion euro treasury that has already been allocated to get the newco off the ground. Alongside this, the EU is asking for discontinuity and an end to the melina that is lengthening the discussion. Here then is that the parties will discuss on the theme of slots, the slots of take-off and landing of Linate where Alitalia today owns 70% of the total rights available for all companies. Vestager asks that this quota be reduced to 35%, but this cut is considered inadmissible by our country.
Another point on which the negotiations (in truth never fluid between the parties) have stalled concerns the assets of the old company which will soon be liquidated: Brussels asks to proceed through open and transparent auctions, in particular on the maintenance and handling that today are part of the parent company Alitalia. but if on these two nodes the parties are tuned (the newco may have a minority stake in both), there is a dispute over the loyalty points. In this case Europe is adamant and asks for a tender in which Ita will not even be able to participate. A very hard blow given that all the company’s most loyal customers pass through the MilleMiglia.
On the rest, however, there is an agreement: the fleet will be at the beginning of 47 aircraft and the employees of the flight part no more than 2,800. The hires will be fished on the market, or even within unemployment lists and not only in the group of Alitalia workers in liquidation. In addition, the contracts will be completely rewritten, another step forward on the discontinuity demanded in a loud voice by Brussels. Minister Giogetti and his technicians, in particular, are closely following the dossier and are trying to tighten the time to avoid the EU’s arrows (the fine will be just under a billion) and to intercept the summer air traffic that should restart . But in the meantime, and this accusation is launched against Commissioner Vestager herself, the other companies in Italy are organizing to restart. The long negotiation times, in essence, would be favoring Alitalia’s competitors: in fact, Ryanair, easyJet, Volotea and Wizz Air, play ahead and launch dozens of domestic flights in Italy, effectively replacing Alitalia’s connections.
But there is another issue that risks causing the protest to explode and concerns salaries: Alitalia employees collected half of what they owed in March. The INPS and the Volo fund that deal with integrating the paychecks of most of the workers (two-thirds on layoffs) are a few days behind and the company in extraordinary administration has until now paid only half of the salaries . This is why from next Tuesday, after the Easter truce, the workers of all the acronyms and professional associations will begin to protest indefinitely under the offices of the competent ministries. According to the National Air Transport Federation, Fnta, which represents pilots and flight attendants Anpac, Anp and Anpav, “we are in an unacceptable situation given that Alitalia is a state-owned company. The only ones who have no responsibility in this affair are the citizens and employees. The payment of a few hundred euros in salary represents a slap in the face for all the workers of the company ”. Finally, according to Monica Mascia, national secretary of Fit-Cisl, “Alitalia’s commissioner management continues to screw up on itself and continues to cause inconvenience to employees; the situation is increasingly unsustainable and the exasperation of workers is growing . The government cannot continue to underestimate this serious situation ”.
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