It still seems to hear the out of tune bells of the Italian spirit that rang out in the electoral campaign of five years ago in which Silvio Berlusconi - emboldened by the incredible assist from the CGIL who had rejected the wedding with Air France - made the tricolor Alitalia one of his points of Force. Berlusconi won the elections and called an Italian consortium of "brave captains" led by Roberto Colaninno and Corrado Passera to save Alitalia. After the insane rejection of the marriage between Alitalia and Air France, caused by the CGIL and ridden by Berlusconi, the Italian consortium was the last alternative to bankruptcy. But the miracle of the relaunch has always remained a chimera and in Alitalia things have never gone as the new shareholders had hoped: the ruthless competition of the high-speed trains, the worsening of the recession, the high price of oil and, finally, the end of the Alitalia's monopoly on the profitable Rome-Milan route has ruined all XNUMX plans for a revival.
Now all that remains is to pick up the pieces. Tomorrow the Alitalia board of directors will approve the 2012 budget project which, despite some cosmetic operations, will show accounts in deep red and a management deficit of over 200 million. The consequence will be the change of leadership and the traumatic expulsion of Andrea Ragnetti after only one year. But, beyond the concerns about the budget, it is the ongoing fight between the shareholders and the pitch darkness on the strategies that alarms.
Sooner or later it will be inevitable that Air France will present itself at the table as the winner and make a low offer to absorb the entire company that ten years ago – if the corporatism of the trade unions hadn't got in the way (Anpac and Cobas before and CGIL later) and the short-sightedness of politicians (An in the lead) – could have negotiated an advantageous alliance with the French, as Francesco Mengozzi had tried to do, the only CEO who managed to bring Alitalia back into the black and who not by chance he was driven out by centre-right politicians. But the French are slyly waiting on the river bank and are thinking for now of putting their budgets back on track under the watchful guidance of that great manager who is Jean-Cyril Spinetta. They will most likely show up towards the end of 2013 when the Italian political situation will also be clear after today's and tomorrow's elections. Meanwhile, Colannino and Intesa Sanpaolo are taking care of stopping the ambitions of the Arabs of Etihad.
For now, Alitalia is in absolute fog: the accounts are crying and to avoid the capital increase, Friday's quarrelsome assembly could do nothing but vote on a proxy for a shareholders' loan which should bring a shot in the arm of about 120 million in empty coffers of the company. But it is on strategy, alliances and leadership that the split among the shareholders becomes particularly worrying, many of whom are eager to exploit the end of the lock-up to sell their block of shares. The current managing director of Alitalia, Andrea Ragnetti, will pay the price in the next few days, who will be fired after just one year at the end of a disastrous experience. But even on his successor the fog remains thick: provisionally his powers will be entrusted to the vice president Elio Catania. For the future we will see but the turmoil is not over.
