Has Alitalia's fate really reached its final stages? This could be the case given that April 30, tomorrow, is the last deadline for the presentation of binding offers from potential partners interested in saving the commissioned company. But 24 hours before the deadline, it is still pitch dark on the possible salvation agreement and the names of potential partners – circulated over the last few days but without any official proposal being presented to the Fs, in charge of presenting the business plan, or to the ministries of Economy and Development or to the Commissioners – are not in themselves a guarantee of the success of the operation.
THE ACTORS IN THE FIELD
The consortium that should guarantee the rescue is partially known: FS, who leads the consortium, is ready to put 30% on the table, Delta Airlines she said she was willing to increase to 15%, a share equivalent to what she reserved for herself mef.
The remaining 40% are still looking for a solid industrial partner together with a possible strategic stake of a second operator. In fact, there has been talk of the possibility of the entry of China Eastern with a small share, a hypothesis relaunched by some agencies on the occasion of Prime Minister Conte's trip to China, which has just ended.
The other names at stake, as is well known, would be above all Atlantia with which the government would start contacts in search of a common peace after the Genoa case. Transport Minister Toninelli had threatened to call into question the motorway concession after the collapse of the Morandi Bridge and made it clear that the green light on the Gronda - which Autostrade has been waiting for for years - was far from arriving. As an alternative to Atlantia, there would also be the Toto group which according to press rumors it would be ready to take over 30% of Alitalia, thus returning to the air transport business from which he had left when AirOne, of which he was the patron, merged into the national airline in the rescue wanted by Silvio Berlusconi in government, in 2011.
GOVERNMENT AT THE CROSSROADS, DI MAIO: AHEAD ANYWAY
It is clear that, in the absence of news, the government is faced with yet another impasse. Both because - in the case of Atlantia as in that of Toto who has an open dispute with Anas (FS group) - the push for entry into Alitalia could be the counterpart to obtaining concessions from the government on other open fronts: the Genoese one for Autostrade, the one with Anas for Toto. Both because the bridge loan of 900 million, granted at the time for 6 months by the previous government to facilitate negotiations with new partners, has been renewed several times and no longer has a deadline: will it ever be repaid?
“We need to complete the last slice, if other proposals arrive tomorrow which for now have only been revealed in the press, then we will understand what to do in the coming months. Otherwise the solutions are already there and we will be able to go ahead anyway”, said Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio speaking of Alitalia, responding to journalists on the now imminent April 30 deadline. Di Maio made no mention of further extensions. And he tried to reassure, specifying that whatever the partners are "there will be the MEF and FS, therefore there is a massive presence of the State that will allow us to appoint a governance that, respecting the rules of the market, looks to the relaunch of the company and Italian tourism policies”. Whether they will still be words in the wind or instead concrete solutions will be verified in the short term.
