Alitalia will not renew the partnership and related joint venture agreements with Air France-KLM when the agreement will expire, in 2017. The Italian company made it known today, specifying that the agreements in question concern passenger services managed by the three carriers between Italy and France and between Italy and the Netherlands, in addition to marketing, sales and distribution of Cargo Belly services of Alitalia managed by Air France-KLM.
The original agreements had been signed by the old Alitalia Cai in 2009 and 2010 (before the marriage with Etihad, in a very different economic context), to then be transferred to the new company (Alitalia SAI) in January 2015.
“These agreements are no longer advantageous – he commented Silvano Cassano, CEO of Alitalia – neither from a commercial point of view nor from a strategic point of view for the new Alitalia and for its ambitious recovery plan. They were negotiated when Alitalia was in a very different position, with the result that the same agreements, in their current form, favor the other party".
The agreements, in fact, "limit our ability to redesign our network - added the manager -, and the possibility for Alitalia to achieve long-term sustainability of its activities. The new Alitalia is in a new position. For the development of our business we need agreements capable of bringing equal benefits to all parties”.
Furthermore, according to Cassano, our priority “for Italy and for Alitalia is regain the market of tourists arriving in our country, while serving Italians traveling abroad for tourism or business. In our plans we also aim to provide competitive Cargo solutions for the Italian manufacturing industry, the second largest in Europe, which increasingly needs to export goods all over the world”.
As for relations with the counterparty, “we communicated to Air France-KLM that we are willing to discuss fairer agreements for the benefit of all the parties involved, but so far we have not reached this result – concluded the CEO -. We remain open to further discussions to reach a mutually acceptable solution. However, in the interest of transparency and clarity for all involved, we have deemed it necessary to announce our intention not to renew these agreements under the current conditions”.
