I know you guys have been champing at the bit, waiting for an update on the latest with Alitalia. I’ve actually been wanting to write about this for a little while, but I figured I’d wait until I went to last night’s launch party at LAX for the new LAX-Rome service. It was a surreal event; like hanging out on the Titanic while half the ship is already under water.

As for the event itself, it was a relatively nice and simple affair over at the always fantastic Flight Path Learning Center. The food and Peroni were good, and they handed out a few freebie tickets on the new LAX nonstop. I think the highlight was when Alitalia’s North America head said that the current situation made it seem like Alitalia should be on Jerry Springer. At least he has a sense of humor about it. I actually felt sorry for some of these guys. So what exactly is the latest?

When we left off last time, Alitalia had accepted the AF/KL bid and even the government had gotten behind it. But, they still needed to get the unions to back the bid. Um, that didn’t happen. And even worse, the Italian government fell apart. Without the approvals they needed, AF/KL walked away, but I’m sure they’d come back if all the other parties decided to stop acting like children.

In the election for the new government, Alitalia, the symbol of national pride (what a horrible symbol), was one of the top campaign issues. Silvio Berlusconi, the man that the Economist called “unfit to lead a modern democracy“, campaigned on the idea that he could prevent Alitalia from falling into non-Italian hands.

Sadly, he won.

So now, not only are the unions against AF/KL, but so is the government. Let’s be clear here. Berlusconi talks a big game. He’s said:

Many businesses, including big ones, have come forward to guarantee the necessary capital for a completely Italian team which, once it knows the accounts of Alitalia, will be able to present a bid.

Um, no. Or, somebody will come forward, but it won’t be even close to being as attractive of a bid as the one from AF/KL. Really, AF/KL is the only true hope for this company to survive, and Berlusconi is beating his chest, acting proud, and sounding like a complete idiot. Of course, he has to cave, but not until he can save some face. Just yesterday, he said:

As concerns the Air France hypothesis, if we went back to the initial project for Alitalia which gave the same weight to Alitalia as the other two airlines as well as being Italian orientated, I would be happy to discuss the possibility and once I take office I will speak about this subject with President Sarkozy.

See, he’s starting to change his tune. You know what’ll happen next. He’ll get a couple of concessions and then he’ll let AF/KL buy the airline. Then he’ll try and look like a hero even though he’s doing nothing good.

I guess I should be happy about this. When AF/KL is allowed to take them over, it’ll probably mean I’ll have to find another “Worst Airline Ever” to pick on. I’m just going to enjoy this for now.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve had a lot of trouble coming up with post topics this week. Maybe it’s a slow week, or maybe work has just been too busy. Either way, today I’m just going to fall back on my old standby . . . Alitalia.

Today, Alitalia received word that of the three expected bidders, only two will make the bid: Air France/KLM and Air One.

Now they have to choose from those two bidders, and it’s not the greatest choice. On the one hand, they have Air One. It’s a small Italian airline that may not be up to the task of integrating the larger, very debt-heavy airline. But, the government could make the most money from them, and yes, the airline would remain Italian.

On the other side, we have Air France/KLM. This is not a stupid airline, so you know they’ve low-balled the bid. I’m reminded of the guys at Texas Pacific Group saying how they’re always interested, it’s just a matter of price. That means of course that the worst of companies may find that TPG is only interested if the price is $1. I’m guessing Air France/KLM is thinking of something along those lines, though not nearly as extreme. The government makes less money, but they may have a better chance of getting an airline that works eventually.

That leaves Lufthansa as the odd man out. They just decided it was a bad idea. Duh. I’m sure they’ll sleep easier tonight.

Now the Alitalia Board will meet to decide which offer they like best. When they choose in the next week or so, they’ll enter into exclusive negotiations with the hope that they’ll get this done by the end of the year.

No.

Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. It’s once again been a little while since we checked in with our favorite incompetent airline, Alitalia. I hadn’t planned on doing a post on Alitalia today, but I was reading a post in Leif Pettersen’s excellent travel blog Killing Batteries that started out like this:

F*cking Italy!!!
OK, OK… Let’s just calm down and try to discuss this like rational, levelheaded F*CKING ITALY!!!!!

Naturally, that made me think it was time for another post on that airline I love to hate.
So, what IS new with these guys?

Not much. The airline continues to bleed money while others are generating loads of cash. They just continue to be the laughing stock of the European industry. (And let’s remember, they have an airline in Europe called Wizz Air so Alitalia has to be bad to wrest the laughing stock title away.) The government is still trying to sell the airline. After the last privatization attempt failed, they went back to the drawing board. I’m pretty sure what they wrote on the board was, “Must privatize airline” and then decided to try it again. Now, they’ve asked for non-binding declaration of interest from potential suitors. It was supposed to be due on Nov 30, but surprise! We found out yesterday that it slipped until Dec 5. But don’t worry. Italy’s transport minister said it won’t slip into 2008. Uh huh.

So which masochists are involved this time around? Italy’s Air One is still in the running. They’ve been the only one to show consistent interest in trying to save this mess. But now, the other two showing interest according to “government officials” are Lufthansa and Air France.

Air France has been rumored for a long time but they’ve really never shown a formal interest. Italian workers would certainly feel at home with the strike-loving French, but they might be frightened away by an airline that actually makes money.

Lufthansa, on the other hand, hasn’t been mentioned very much. This would surely see Alitalia defect into the Star Alliance. Hmm, something about German (Lufthansa), Italian (Alitalia), and Japanese (ANA) interests uniting in an alliance makes me a bit uncomfortable . . . .

Anyway, they keep saying this will be done by Christmas. Who wants to take bets?

Thanks to foreign ownership restrictions and political spats, we don’t quite have a marriage here, but Delta and Air France have decided to take one step closer with a joint venture for all flying across the Pond as well as LAX-Tahiti.

Though I don’t know the full details, I think this goes beyond the Lufthansa/United revenue sharing pact and is probably closer to the more robust Northwest/KLM deal. Basically, they pool all the money they make on transatlantic flights and split it up between them. They’re also going to split costs of the operation, so there’s no incentive for Delta to have someone fly on a Delta aircraft instead of an Air France aircraft. Each airline gets equal benefits and that’s good news for travelers.

See, Delta won’t try to push you on their flights now even if an Air France codeshare suits you better. Now they should present all options equally and that’s good news. Don’t expect things to change overnight, though. The first phase next April is pretty limited. It only is in effect for flights between the airline’s hubs and flights from London/Heathrow to the US. Everything else comes into effect by 2010.

So why is Heathrow included in the first round? Open skies, of course. A joint venture like this opens up new flying opportunities, and Heathrow is a prime example. Air France has slots at the jam-packed airport right now, but they use them for flights over to Paris. That might be ok for connecting opportunities, but now with a US partner, Air France can make a lot more money using those slots for Transatlantic flights. In fact, they’ll be launching a flight in the already crowded London/Heathrow to LAX market and they’ll give three slots to Delta so they can fly twice daily from JFK and once from Atlanta.

Unfortunately, Air France isn’t exactly giving Delta the best slots around. Flights times aren’t great. JFK will have one departure in the morning for a daylight flight and the other not until 9p. The ATL departure is even worse - it doesn’t leave until 11p. Despite the times, I imagine it will still perform pretty well for them.

And those aren’t the only flights getting started here. Delta will also be going deeper into France now with flights from JFK to Lyon and to Paris/Orly, the airport to the south of Paris (CDG is north). These will be operated with 757s, so they’re throwing just the right amount of capacity in there.

Until cross-border mergers are allowed, this is going to be the best way to create a global network. Buried in the press release, it’s noted that if they are given anti-trust immunity with Northwest and KLM as well, all four would combine their operations into one huge transatlantic market. That would presumably point to a DL-NW merger here in the US, though that’s obviously just speculation. I imagine we’ll keep seeing more of this as airlines consolidate around the three major alliances.

That means that oneworld will align around American in the US and British Airways in Europe. Star Alliance will align around United (and maybe US Airways) in the US and Lufthansa in Europe. Meanwhile, SkyTeam is aligning around Delta/Northwest in the US (Continental sits on the fence) and Air France/KLM in Europe.

For now, this step is good news for Delta and Air France loyalists. It should open up more opportunities for them all around.

It may not be cool to everyone (despite my title), but a handful of new long haul routes have been introduced lately, and I think it’s worth a post. Here they are in no particular order (ok, it’s actually the order the stories were opened in my browser’s tabs).

• This morning, Delta announced they’ll be starting nonstop flights from Atlanta to Lagos (Nigeria) on December 3 with 767-300 aircraft. I’m not so sure this one will actually fly though. Continental announced plans to fly there previously (lots of oil out there), but a fight between the US, British, and Nigerian governments (don’t ask) didn’t allow Continental to start. Will this be different?
• On Feb 20, Air France said they’d begin flying daily between Paris/de Gaulle and Seattle from June 11 on A330-200 aircraft. This one starts to make sense as the airline strengthens its SkyTeam alliance ties. Northwest has a strong presence in Seattle (partner KLM already flies nonstop to Amsterdam), and an additional frequent flier agreement with Alaska Airlines should help as well.
• Air China launched what I consider to be a very odd route - Beijing to Sao Paulo twice a week with a stop in Madrid on 767s. I have no doubt there’s a great deal of traffic between Sao Paulo and China, but why Madrid? Air China has the right to sell tickets between Madrid and Sao Paulo, so maybe they thought they could fill up their plane that way. You will find them consistently less expensive than Iberia, which also flies the route nonstop.
• Air New Zealand said this morning they’ll fly three 777s a week between Auckland and Vancouver. This will only operate during the southern summer - November 2 through March 28. They’ve said they want to start a new city each year, and this is an interesting one. I imagine if it does well they’ll extend it year round.

Yeah, it’s a crude drawing, but I think you get the point. It’s time for iPod + airplane.

Apple announced that they will be partnering with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to let customers use their iPod with existing inflight entertainment systems. Customers will be able to plug their iPods in and charge them during flight. At the same time, they can watch videos through the personal seatback screens.

United confirmed they will be installing this, though it will have to be a very limited installation. There are only personal seatback screens on international 767s and 777s, so on other planes it’s not worth much. It’s unclear if you will be able to charge your iPod on other aircraft in the fleet even though there is no seatback screen.

In a very strange turn, Air France and KLM are saying that they have not agreed to install the system yet. They say only informal talks have taken place.

I must admit I was truly surprised that this hadn’t happened already. Northwest and Air France will finally start codesharing on each other’s flights from September 2.

Northwest fans will know that Northwest and KLM have been tied at the hip for years. In fact, KLM doesn’t even have a US website because all bookings are handled by Northwest. They split revenue on all transatlantic flights - that’s how close they are.

Well, Air France bought KLM at the end of 2003, so it should have been a natural that Northwest and Air France would start to cuddle up. Now Air France/KLM anchor the SkyTeam alliance in Europe while Northwest, Continental, and Delta do it from this side of the pond. So that’s why I was surprised that only now, 3 years after the merger, are Northwest and Air France getting together.

At first, it’s not worth much. They start only with codesharing on each other’s Detroit - Paris route on September 2. That means you can buy a Northwest ticket for the Air France flight and vice versa on that route only.

According to the press release, the meat of the agreement comes “later this fall” when they’ll start codesharing beyond Detroit and Paris. So Northwest customers will be able to buy a Northwest ticket from the US to places beyond Paris by connecting to Air France. The same goes from Air France customers wanting to travel beyond Minneapolis/St Paul or Detroit to other American destinations on an Air France ticket.