What's behind the turnaround at the top of Air France-KLM and what effects will it have on relations with Alitalia? The origins of the earthquake also clarify the horizon in front of the Italian company.
Let's start from the beginning: beyond the power struggles and the clash of personalities between the historic head of Air France, Jean-Cyril Spinetta and his former heirloom Gourgeon, the changing of the guard at the top of Air France-KLM took place in the name of strategic continuity.
Spinetta and the Dutchman Van Wijk return to the cockpit who are the historical fathers of the Air France-KLM merger and who move along the same strategic lines defined from the beginning and continued in all these months. This leads us to say with reasonable certainty that there will be no changes with respect to Air France-KLM's objective of integrating with Alitalia over time, of which the French-Dutch group is the relative majority shareholder.
If anything what changes is the time dimension and the scale of priorities. The earthquake at the top of Air France-KLM did not occur only due to a clash over appointments to command posts but because significant management problems arose, which are certainly sustainable but which will require additional attention. This has obvious implications on relations with Alitalia and on the times and calendars of a possible integration which remains on the radar of the Franco-Dutch company but which appears inevitably destined to slip over time.
In essence, the merger between Air France-Klm and Alitalia remains in the list of possible and probable events but it is not for today. Least of all after the Parisian turnaround. Some say that with Berlusconi at Palazzo Chigi it would be difficult to imagine Alitalia becoming French. And this is an interesting consideration but it is worth less than numbers and facts.
Beyond the defocusing of Paris and Amsterdam on Rome to solve, first of all, the management malfunctions of Air France-KLM, there are always two elements to keep in mind in this story which also concerns the future of Alitalia.
First the lock-up agreement between Alitalia's shareholders has not yet expired and it is unlikely that, in the present situation, anyone wants to anticipate it. Secondly the market capitalization of Air France-KLM is today particularly depressed and this would make it difficult to determine acceptable levels of exchange for the French and Dutch in the highly probable hypothesis that an eventual merger with Alitalia would take place not for hard cash but through an exchange of shares. The integration between Air France-KLM and Alitalia therefore remains on the agenda but, barring unforeseeable surprises, the turnaround in Paris has the effect of postponing it in time. As Guergeon also confirmed in a farewell letter.
