After eight months, today the signature has arrived. Alitalia and Etihad have finally signed the agreement that will allow the new rescue of the Italian company, of which the Arab giant will acquire 49% with an investment of over 1,758 billion euros over the next three years. Today's is the pre-agreement, which will now have to be examined by the EU and, once the authorizations have been obtained, will be finalized in the autumn. According to the business plan, Alitalia should break even in 2017.
“We made it after a year of hard work and many nights – commented the CEO of Alitalia, Gabriele Del Torchio -. After so much turbulence we can start an air navigation journey which I hope will be peaceful and safe. We also thank the people who will have to leave Alitalia: we are sorry, but painful decisions are sometimes necessary to create the future. It was a somewhat mixed engagement between Alitalia and Etihad, but we are here to celebrate something that is much more than an engagement, to start a strategic alliance. Today we are making an important agreement, which means a lot for Alitalia but also for the community. We are very proud to be the first major airline to have made a strategic deal with Etihad."
The number one of the Emirates company, James Hogan, said that “Alitalia is suitable to be a partner of Etihad but from a financial point of view it is not working well: there are no simple recipes, we have a three-year plan to return to profitability. We want to build and grow together. We don't want to eliminate what exists but to stabilize the company. The unions have signed agreements to allow for the restructuring and relaunch of the brand. Alitalia will be a different company in the future. In this phase of the transaction there will be difficult choices to make, to arrive at a company that has the right size. We will be back in the first week of September to speak with the staff, to illustrate our vision. The relaunch will already start in the first quarter of next year”.
A relaunch in which the State also participates: Poste Italiane, second shareholder of Alitalia with 19,48%, has put on the plate a total of 150 million euros in two tranches.
