Rome, November 20 - The decision on who will be the foreign partner of Italy's future national carrier will be exclusively made by the company buying Alitalia's flight division without government interference, Industry Minister Claudio Scajola vowed on Thursday. The minister added that he expected Compagnia Aerea Italiana CAI, a group of Italian investors put together to set up a new national carrier, to make its decision before the end of the year. ''First they have to come into possession of the Alitalia assets and then, certainly before the end of the year, decide who will be their partner,'' Scajola said. Wednesday evening Scajola told Alitalia's government- appointed administrator, Augusto Fantozzi, that he could accept a CAI offer for Alitalia's flight operations on the condition that the private Italian investors pay no less than 1.052 billion euros. CAI's original offer was just under one billion euros but their proposal was revised Tuesday in a day-long meeting between lawyers for CAI and Alitalia, which was also assisted by its advisor bank Rothchild. Fantozzi was handed a final draft of the offer on Wednesday, from CAI CEO Rocco Sabelli, and a copy of the offer was forwarded to Scajola. Speaking on Thursday, Scajola said he was so confident that CAI would be successful in setting up a new Italian carrier that he saw it hiring new staff ''much earlier than anyone would have thought''. CAI is initially planning to hire some 12,500 staff from the close to 17,000 at Alitalia and 3,000 at Air One, Italy's biggest private airline and CAI partner which will be merged into the new carrier In regard to CAI's choice of a strategic partner, Scajola confirmed that ''several leading European carriers would like to become partners including Air France and Lufthansa, as well as British Airways. The choice will be made by CAI based on which it considers to be the best from a commercial and industrial point of view''. Most observers believe that Air France has the best chance because it already holds a stake in Alitalia and is its partner in the international SkyTeam alliance. Breaking with Air France would cost Alitalia an estimated 100 to 300 million euros because of the penalty it would have to pay for leaving SkyTeam and the cost of finding alternatives to the code-sharing, ticketing and reservation arrangements it has with the French carrier. Air France Chairman Jean Cyril Spinetta on Thursday said his airline remained a ''clear'' candidate to be the new Italian carrier's partner but said that ''the decision will be made by CAI''. He added that he thought it ''reasonable'' that the new partner hold a 20-25% stake in the new carrier. Spinetta also said that CAI would decide which hub it intended to focus on between Rome and Milan. ''We have no preference between the two. All we have said is that the decision be in line with the adopted business plan,'' Spinetta. Observers have always believed that Air France preferred Rome while Lufthansa liked Milan, a fact very important to the regionalist Northern League party which is a key partner in Premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right government. While stressing that it was not the government's decision, Berlusconi said on Tuesday that his government ''looked very favorably'' at an alliance between Alitalia and Lufthansa. This was not the first time that Berlusconi had said this and he repeated it following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Italian News: New Alitalia decisions up to CAI
Rome, November 20 - The decision on who will be the foreign partner of Italy's future national ...
Saturday 04 July 2009
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