Alitalia and Lufthansa: different stories, increasingly similar destinies. The crisis of the Italian flag carrier has been known for years, but after the initial sigh of relief following the acquisition of 49% by the much richer Etihad, a new and complicated chapter is about to open: Alitalia in fact, once again time, it would seem that he just can't cope with his own resources and the Arab partner can only helplessly witness the drama, given that he can no longer put his hand to his wallet due to the constraints of the European Unionas a minority shareholder. And if Etihad rose to a majority stake, Alitalia would effectively become a carrier of the Persian Gulf and would therefore lose the flight rights granted to European companies.
The situation is therefore at an impasse, pending the board of directors which should meet in this month of December for the formal approval of the new industrial plan in its details. But the first rumors provided by the newspapers leave room for a situation that is certainly not rosy for the company: according to what was published by Repubblica, the role of the state would even become topical again, "a lifesaver named Cdp, or, secondly, Railways. Certainly there is a financial emergency on which the creditor banks have already intervened. In the meantime, we are working on savings: cutting national routes, a net reduction in the salaries of pilots and around 1.400 employees are at risk".
Alitalia has therefore not managed to make a breakthrough, despite the partnership with Etihad. "The breakeven or mini-operating profit on which we bet on for 2017 is out of reach and will arrive (perhaps) in 2020", always writes Repubblica. The "renationalization" of Alitalia is a hypothesis on the table if only to give it time to find a new stable partner: a plan that would see the company hypothetically split in two, with one branch devoted to international and long-haul "prestige" flights and the other engaged in a grueling fight with Ryanair and easyJet on low cost, in the inevitable role of outsider.
But if Athens weeps, Sparta does not laugh. Not even the German company Lufthansa is doing well at all, which in the last pilots' strike recorded record negative numbers: 4.461 flights canceled and 525 passengers stranded in six days. The unrest was only the latest act in a confrontation that has been going on since April 2014 and has already cost the company led by ex-racer Carsten Spohr 550 million euros, 100 of which this year alone. However, the numbers alone are not enough to decipher the meaning of what is happening to the leading European airline. The deepest damage is likely not to be economic, but to image.
Michael Gierse, who as fund manager of Union Investment – one of Lufthansa's major shareholders – has been following the events of the Frankfurt group for years, does not shy away from it: “Lufthansa's good reputation is ruined by strikes”. The problem, he explains, is that characteristics such as punctuality and reliability, now called into question by the fourteenth pilots' strike in two and a half years, apply to all of Germany. “The first shock came from Volkswagen: people didn't think such a thing was possible here. Now Lufthansa is casting a shadow over the whole country”. To all this must be added the trauma, not yet overcome, of the worst catastrophe in recent German history, the 150 deaths of flight 9525 of the subsidiary Germanwings, in March 2015.
Among the challenges to be faced for Lufthansa, unlike for Alitalia, there is instead that of economic stability. Indeed, in 2015 passengers increased by 1,6% to almost 108 million e profit rose 55% to 1,8 billion euros, and positive signals have also arrived since the last quarter of this year. However, Gierse clarifies, the pilots' strike comes at an unfavorable moment, as it diverts attention from society's real problems, starting with the challenge posed by low-cost airlines. On this "I see parallels with Alitalia", notes the analyst: almost twenty years after its complete privatization, in 1997, Lufthansa runs the risk of experiencing the same fate as the Italian flag carrier, surpassed at home by Ryanair and Easyjet.
So far in Germany low-cost airlines have not taken off as elsewhere precisely because German companies have created their low-cost branch, as Lufthansa did with Germanwings. But now things could change, especially after Ryanair's change of strategy, which has identified its main growth market in Germany and a month ago announced for the first time flights from Frankfurt, Lufthansa's undisputed hub so far.
