Woohoo! It’s time for an Alitalia update. You know how much I love these guys for their incredible ability to do just about everything wrong, and of course, nothing has changed.
The latest news is about their “survival/transition” plan according to ATW Daily News. 
I was really hoping that the end was near for these guys, but you knew that wouldn’t actually happen. Now they have a super duper plan to fix the airline. Shall we take bets on how long it is before this one fails? Actually it’s probably safe to say it’s failed before it even started.
The new plan revolves around the airline’s two hubs in Rome and Milan. They’ve now decided that two hubs don’t work. So they’re slashing flights out of Milan in half and bumping up Rome flights. They’re also consolidating cargo operations at Milan. Other than that, it’s not entirely clear what they’re doing. It seems that they’ve had their managers enroll in Glenn Tilton’s “How to Speak in Circles and Say Absolutely Nothing” class. Here are some gems:
- The airline is “no longer able to sustain the negative trend of accumulated and perspective losses.”
- The survival plan is meant to achieve “conditions of sustainability and continuity for company activities in the short/medium term.”
- It will suspend flights with “strongly negative economic results and with no prospects for recovery in the short term.”
Wow, that’s good stuff. But if they’re going to suspend flights that have a negative economic result, they aren’t going to have any flights left.
Please note that at not one point in that article or this one does the the airline mention job cuts. They talk about cutting routes and cutting airplanes but not jobs. There’s no question they need cuts, and maybe they’re planning them, but they’re probably too scared to say it. Why? We all know what happens when they threaten cuts. Strike!
And that’s exactly what the pilots are up to now simply in anticipation of what’s to come. They’re staging a “work-to-rule” protest which means they’re being overly cautious above and beyond the norm. Basically, they’re doing everything strictly by the book and they’re not in any hurry to do it. This is similar to what happened to United back in the Summer of Hell in 2000. Yesterday, 18 flights were canceled after 83 were canceled the Thursday/Friday before.
Many say that the government is just trying to dress up Alitalia to make it look pretty for a suitor. I just can’t believe that any suitor would be that stupid.
5 comments on “The Latest From Our Good Friends at Alitalia”
rather than cutting down on intercontinental routes which have good load factors they should rather cut down managers and expensive italian jobs as well as outsource back office jobs to cheaper places. basically an italian airline without italians will make alot of money for investors am not sure if the government will approve .. what say
If they could cut jobs, they would. But that’s probably the biggest problem they have right now. The government won’t let it happen and every time the employees think it could happen, they all strike.
I like Alitalia. I mean I flew a couple of times with Alitalia and my flight was ok, and arrived on time.