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.

Time flies, doesn’t it? It seems like just yesterday that Alitalia was finally being privatized, but it’s actually been a few months. I thought it was time to check in on the airline to see how it’s doing. Anyone want to make any bets?

Of course, the airline isn’t doing well at all. It is projected to lose 200 million euros for 2009. That may sound like a big number for an airline that shrunk dramatically after its restructuring, but . . . uh, yeah that is a pretty big number. Granted, it’s far less than what the airline was going to lose in 2008, but really that’s a given. If they couldn’t improve on what the bungling government was doing, then there would have been no hope at all.

So are people flocking back to Alitalia now that it’s under new management? Hardly. The airline was crowing that it had bumped its load factor up to 59%. It had apparently been down around 43% so this is good news. I believe Alitalia will soon be launching its new ad campaign, “Fly Us and Get an Empty Middle Seat.” Catchy, no?

And the news doesn’t get much better. Remember that Lufthansa started up its own Lufthansa Italia subsidiary to fly between Italy and other EU markets? Well they’re heading for the Italian domestic market now as well. In April, Lufthansa will start flying from Milan to Bari, Naples, and most importantly, Rome, the crown jewel domestic market.

But at least labor relations are going well. The unions haven’t struck since, well, yesterday. Ok, maybe that’s not so good either. They had planned a 24 hour strike yesterday to protest their treatment by the new management team. I didn’t hear anything about whether or not that disrupted any flights or not, but maybe that’s just not considered news anymore.

Thanks for continuing to provide me with excellent blog fodder, Alitalia.

Yes, this is a post about Italy, but believe it or not, Alitalia isn’t the main focus. It’s the bungling Italian government that has caught my eye once again for their plans to help Alitalia and kick low cost carriers to the far corners of the Rome metro area. If your flag carrier can’t win through competition, might as well play dirty and help them out, right? Sheesh.

I don’t speak Italian, so my understanding of the situation relies on Google Translate and a Ryanair press release. Here’s what seems to be happening.

Noise has been a sensitive issue for those living around Ciampino airport, a mere 10 miles from central Rome. The airport had been growing with Ryanair and EasyJet having substantial operations along with smaller operations from Wizz and, apparently, an airline called Romavia (which still flies a 707?!). Alitalia and pretty much everyone else fly from Leonardo da Vinci Airport at Fiumicino, about 25 miles from the city center.

The region’s government decided to turn Viterbo, an old military base about 60 miles north of the city into the third airport for the area. Just to get an idea for how far out this place is, take a look at this map:

If they want a third airport, that’s there own business, but now all the noise complaints caused them to run a study. According to Ryanair, the results prove that there isn’t a huge noise issue, but the region’s government is still looking to shrink or shut the airport anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Raise your hand if you know who would get the biggest benefit by having Ryanair and EasyJet move to the far away Viterbo airport. That’s right, it’s our good friends at Alitalia.

If anyone knows more about this story AND speaks English, hit the comments. By the way, if you just want to complain about the noise around the airport, don’t bother. That airport is one of the oldest in the world – it’s been there since 1916 – so you knew what was there when you moved in.

Just remember, today is your last chance to vote in the 2008 Weblog Awards. You can vote once per day, so even if you’ve voted before, head on back and do it one more time. Voting ends at:

9a in Sydney (Jan 14)
7a in Tokyo (Jan 14)
10p in London
5p in New York
2p in Los Angeles
12n in Honolulu

My guess is that it’ll be a close race all the way to the end, so make sure you head over and vote for the blog you like best.

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-travel-blog/

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

---

Hallelujah! It’s official. Alitalia is born again. Praise Silvio! Last night, the last “old” Alitalia flight landed and the airline completely shut down for a few hours in order to get some sort of certification change. This morning, Alitalia woke up merged with Air One under the “new” Alitalia name. That means we need a new “worst airline ever.” Yes, that honor will now be bestowed upon . . . the “new” Alitalia. I’m operating under the premise that they are guilty until proven innocent.

And why would I automatically pass it on to the new Alitalia? Well not much is changing yet. Yes, we have a new, smaller Alitalia that now owns Air One as well. The combined airlines will continue to operate separately for now, but they’re beginning to merge pieces together. But most importantly, we still have those oh-so-stubborn unions which are still rattling their sabres, hoping for a miracle to save all their jobs. There’s probably only room for one miracle here, and that’s the fact that Alitalia still exists. Instead, we’ll see protests all day long and maybe even a strike or two considering how things work over there.

Oh, and there is one other big piece of news. Alitalia has now officially chosen Air France as the winner of the ownership lottery. For a mere 323 million euros, Air France gets 25 percent of the airline. Looks like the French have succeeded in stopping the German march southward, sort of. Lufthansa will still start up its Italia subsidiary to fly out of Milan, and they own Air Dolomiti as well so there will be strong competition.

But Air France now gets three out of nineteen (19?!) board seats and Alitalia will remain in Skyteam. Alitalia frequent fliers probably won’t see a big change on that front at all. So now we have a private Alitalia that’s a little smaller, but those are really the only changes so far. Can it really find its way out of last place in the race for worst airline ever? Time will tell, but of course, I highly doubt it.