It’s time for an Alitalia update, and I can’t say I’m happy about this one. Not only is Alitalia making money, but it may try to sell itself to Air France/KLM (even though success seems unlikely). This airline just haven’t given me much to work with in the way of screwing people over lately, and that’s no fun at all.

By the way, just to set the record straight, Alitalia is still the reigning Worst Airline Ever. You might recall the recent post where Mexicana became the new holder of that title, but Mexicana is gone. And as we all know, if the winner is unable to fulfill its duties as Worst Airline Ever, the runner-up steps into its place. So, Alitalia, welcome back.

But Alitalia isn’t acting like the airline that we used to know and hate. In fact, in the third quarter, Alitalia made €39 million. I realize that in this climate, every airline should be able to make money, but if you want to be the worst airline ever, certainly you should still post a loss. And the load factor climbed to a somewhat-respectable 76 percent. Ah, come on. That’s just not right.

At least the first 9 months of the year still showed up €125 million in the red, so there is hope that this is just a temporary blip. But what if Alitalia doesn’t stay around long enough for us to know for sure? Apparently, CEO Rocco Sabelli is revealing in an upcoming book that he’s going to try to sell the airline to Air France/KLM, an airline conglomerate which already owns 25 percent of Alitalia.

Now, this has been a possibility for ages. With Alitalia a member of SkyTeam and firmly entrenched in the Air France/KLM sphere of influence, a takeover seems quite logical. We’ve seen Lufthansa do it with airlines like Swiss and Brussels. It takes over airlines but runs them separately. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen with Alitalia.

But Rocco does say in this book (what kind of weird book is this?) that he thinks shareholders won’t go for this anyway. Whew. Without Alitalia around, I wouldn’t know who to pick on. Other bad airlines (like Mexicana) actually go away, but Alitalia, like a diamond, is forever. Then again, if Alitalia keeps up its recent performance, I may have to go fishing for another candidate here. Aerolineas Argentinas, you busy these days? It might be time to pay a visit.

I never thought things could get any worse for Alitalia, but they have. No, no. It’s not that they’re performing worse. It’s that they’re no longer feeding me with excellent fodder to support my claim that they’re the worst airline ever. It’s really a drag. But fear not, there are still some gems out there that make me reluctant to remove that title just yet.

Alitalia has, without question, been performing better, but that’s a relative term. In the first quarter of 2010, the airline lost a mere €125 million. I know, still awful, right? But that’s better than the €210 million loss in Q1 2009. Most of that is probably coming from filling an terrible 64.5% of seats as opposed to last year’s frighteningly terrible 52%.

The airline has also just joined the Air France/Delta joint venture. I joked with someone that it must have made Air France and Delta an offer they “couldn’t refuse.” Last time Delta CEO Richard Anderson flew on a flat bed on Delta, he probably woke up with a horse’s head awaiting him.

Why exactly am I writing about them if the news isn’t that bad? Well, I saw this interview with the awesomely-named Antongiulio Zecchini, Alitalia’s network planning manager. Maybe it’s a language barrier, but I found it to be quite confusing. When asked to explain the dual airline Alitalia/Air One strategy, Antongiulio said this:

Alitalia is now hubbing at Rome Fiumicino and optimising Milan operations to serve the main local markets. It also serves premium flows in Linate, taking care of the time-sensitive flyers from/to (Milan) Linate city airport and long-haul operations.

While Air One is the ‘smart carrier’ dedicated to short and medium-haul price-sensitive travellers from/to Milan Malpensa and competes with low-fare carriers.

Alitalia’s integration with Air One also brought a legacy of bases in the Italian province. As well as feeding the long-haul network, priority has extended to covering routes bypassing Rome and Milan, to better serve customers along the Italian peninsula.

Ok, so lemme get this straight. We know that Rome/Fiumicino is a hub. Milan Linate is just for the “premium flows” – heavy shorter haul biz traffic markets, I assume. Malpensa is served by Alitalia on the best routes while Air One serves the rest of Malpensa by going up against the low cost carriers. It’s also looking to beef up the domestic markets that don’t touch Rome and Milan. So it’s a huge mix of point-to-point and hubbing.

I think I get it, but then he goes and contradicts himself by saying that Alitalia codeshares with Air One to feed intercontinental operations at Malpensa. That sounds like a hub. But if it is a hub, it’s not doing a very good job, because Alitalia keeps moving other short haul services to Linate. This dual airport thing in Milan is just killing that city. If that’s not enough, there’s Milan Orio Al Serio as well, and Air Italy is serving that. Yep, Alitalia is codesharing with that airline now as well.

I mean, Milan isn’t even a huge focus for the airline. That’s supposed to be Rome. Meanwhile there are all kinds of efforts to grow the airline outside of Rome and Milan altogether in other Italian cities as well.

And we haven’t even talked about the fleet yet. For shorter haul, the airline is finally getting close to ditching its last MD-80. But there is still a split fleet between the A320 family and 737s. Let’s not forget it also flies Embraer 170s and CRJ-900s. Nice of them to sample each manufacturer. (Yes, it’s even believed that there will be an order coming soon for the Sukhoi SuperJet.)

On long haul, there’s a motley mix of ten 777s, six 767s, and two A330s. The A330s are being used from Malpensa while the rest of the fleet seems to be in Rome.

Got that? I swear, this airline is in a strange place. On the one hand, it needs to do a lot of work to get in better shape. On the other hand, it seems to be trying to do too much at once. I have no idea how to fix that, but hopefully that means it will provide me with good fodder for years to come.

Ah, spring. The days become longer, the temps get warmer, and, apparently, it’s a great time for airline strikes. Lufthansa pilots just struck for a day and postponed the rest for later. Meanwhile, British Airways is on deck as the French air traffic controllers wreak havoc in their own country. And don’t worry, Alitalia has struck in the last week as well, of course. What the heck is going on here?

With Lufthansa, the pilots aren’t happy so they walked out yesterday. That left the airline canceling about half their daily flights and plenty of passengers stuck going nowhere. Last night, the pilots agreed to suspend their strike until March 8 so they could rejoin talks. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Lufthansa will magically start operating at full speed today. It takes a little while to get everything back into place for a normal operation, so check with the airline if you’re flying.

As for British Airways, well, we’ve talked about this one before. Remember that the BA flight attendants were going to strike over Christmas but then the courts told them to screw off because of some voting irregularities. Well, they’re back and now with a new vote showing 83 percent support, the strike could come with only a week’s notice. At least they’re promising it won’t disrupt Easter flying. Not sure why Christmas was ok but Easter isn’t, but I’m not complaining.

The French air traffic controllers? They’ve been on strike this week and have hurt a lot of the air traffic running through the country. For example, Air France has announced that today it will operate all its long haul flights but only 75 percent of European flights will operate from Paris/de Gaulle with only 50 percent from Orly.

Why do we keep seeing all these strikes? Well it’s more of the same. It’s usually an issue of job retention, outsourcing, and of course, pay. The problem is that the industry today is not what it was 30 years ago when pay was high and so were fares. Some airlines have been able to adapt but none have done so without serious pain for most involved (except of course, those insanely-misguided CEOs who think that taking a big bonus in the face of all this pain is a good idea).

What we’re seeing now, however, is two different types of unions based on how they react. The labor unions that realize that this is unfortunately a necessary change will be in better shape because they can participate in the discussion and work to find ways to help reduce costs with the least amount of pain to their members. Those unions that simply want to strike if they don’t get everything they want, no matter how delusional, will end up watching from the outside as the industry changes without their participation.

As a result, customers end up suffering, of course. If your flight is canceled because of a strike, then I would just cancel and rebook at a later date if you can. If you need to be there, well, you can look at other airlines but they will be bursting at the seams trying to accommodate everyone. Just remember that a strike doesn’t mean the airline shuts down. Most airlines are able to get together enough of a skeleton crew to operate at least some flights, as Lufthansa showed by operating half theirs. But running only half your flights is still a recipe for lots of stuck travelers.

Oh, and Alitalia? Well it’s hardly worth mentioning, but they struck on February 16. Ho, hum. Nothing to see here.

[Original Photo via Steinsky on Wikipedia]

I have never written a more surprising post than this one. Alitalia, the queen of red ink, has actually, shockingly, found that by making more money than it was spending, it could post a profit. This past quarter, the airline made 15 million euros in operating profit (pdf). Holy crap.

Don’t get too excited, Alitalia lovers. (There have to be one or two of you, right?) This does not mean that Alitalia has relinquished its title as the worst airline ever. But, in a nod to their tremendous achievement, I have introduced a question mark to their badge. It’s no longer the firm statement that it used to be, but something tells me it will return to that point once again soon.

There are still plenty of problems. These results were for the third quarter – July, August, and September. That’s prime tourist season for Italy yet the airline only managed a 74% load factor. Granted, that’s a huge improvement over earlier quarters, but my guess is that it will drop once again now that the tourists are gone.

Even more shocking is the airline’s operational performance. They ran a 99.7% completion factor and on time percentage rose to 74%. They even passed 80% in October, the first month of Q4. Remember, this is an airline that usually likes to strike every couple of days.

Wow, just wow. I’m curled up in the fetal position right now questioning everything. If this keeps up, CEO Rocco Sabelli will get the leader of the century award. Fortunately, I don’t have much faith that it will continue.

It’s been way too long since my last Alitalia post, hasn’t it? It’s actually been pretty quiet over there as the new management team tries to figure out how to make something of nothing. There’s no question they still have a long way to go after posting their latest results.

For the first half of 2009, the new management team turned in a stellar $385 million loss. That’s right. By “stellar,” I mean “absolutely terrible.” That was 6 percent worse than predicted. But the good news is that $300 million of that loss came in the first quarter. That means they lost less than $100 million in Q2. Should we be congratulating them for that? Sheesh.

Load factors have been dreadful. In the first quarter, it was 51 percent but in the second quarter it rose to 65 percent. It’s amazing how good a number like 65 percent looks when it follows 51 percent. It’s still terrible.

The airline is expecting a 72 percent load factor this month, but that is still below where it should be. We’re talking about Italy in July – every tourist on earth is heading there as we speak and yet they can’t even fill three quarters of their seats? Yikes.

Oh Alitalia, how I’ve missed you.