Alitalia's malaise is back in the limelight these days but, to fully understand it, it is worth focusing on the last twenty years of the company and that is on the so-called Alitaliano twenty years. But why only in the last twenty years? After all, the history of the company is much longer and it would be enough to scroll through the sequence of managerial "reversals", of the economic results and of the capital interventions carried out by IRI in the 70s and 80s to realize that the interesting story is the "teacher of life” would be much longer. But the situation of monopolist on the domestic market, the more binding regulation of the world skies and the less stringent European legislation on the subject of competition protection and state aid allowed in those years a management, if not less controversial, at least less dramatic of the inefficiencies of the company and the structural weaknesses of the Italian transport system.
And then the "stories of Alitalia from its origins to the present day" are not lacking in authors (as always more or less profound in the analysis). So, maybe it's not worth going much further back than 1997, more or less the year in which the troubles for the so-called national airline became more serious and even exploded, when (precisely in the spring of '97) it finally entered into force the full liberalization of European air transport; a "historic" event for the entire sector with respect to which Italy proved - needless to say - sensationally unprepared.
Unprepared because culturally incapable of dealing with unequivocal and constant determination the fundamental knots of the "Alitalia question", intertwined in an apparently inextricable way: too big to be a regional and too small to be an international operator of the level of overvalued national ambitions in a highly competitive and by now largely deregulated context, focused on a relatively poor market of high yield traffic, structurally fragmented and exposed – due to the nature of its destinations – to aggressive competition from low cost carriers, Alitalia, at least until its recent privatization (slightly half of the "twenty years" in question), would have needed a shareholder who wanted to constantly do his job and with the necessary determination.
And instead its “solemnly” public shareholder (we recall that control of Alitalia in 2000 had passed from IRI to the Treasury) expressed in deeds – alas! by its very nature – a dual and eternally uncertain soul (we will call it after Carlo Alberto, the Italo Hamlet): on the one hand, a “technical soul” which could not fail to see clearly what had to be done (after all the diagnoses were relatively easy and those of the various top-managers who succeeded one another in that period, some even coming from the United States and now having returned to positions of great importance in the air transport sector, were substantially in agreement on the "recipe" ); on the other, "a political soul" who, for (short-sighted) social reasons, local conveniences or (crazy) patriotic whims, was afraid to let what had to be done be done.
The fact is, however, that this sort of Hamletic schizophrenia generated two devastating effects; first effect: it hindered the execution of the plans which, itself a shareholder, Italo Amleto, solicited and solemnly approved. The tools, the classic ones of these situations: endless triangular negotiations (company-unions-government), non-fulfilment of the commitments that the Government itself assumed when approving the plan (first of all, on the social safety nets necessary for the management of the plans), "invitation ” to the management to freeze this or that action which by its nature required the operational cooperation of the Government (and, therefore, "invitations" so to speak), etc etc .. Those parts of the restructuring plan were barely able to go ahead that did not require the formal cooperation of the will of the government: the healthy reductions in the perimeter of the Group (the sale of the charter, the travel agent, the oversized headquarters, the sale of ancillary activities or the outsourcing of non-core services, etc. ).
But it could not be enough to avoid the consequences, which are also the classic ones in these situations: in the end, obviously, the shareholder had to make the necessary resources available on a pro-rata basis to cover the losses inevitably generated by the forced paralysis of the company on the key themes of its restructuring but also - and this should not be forgotten, as unfortunately often happens, in the period we are talking about - the extraordinary negative contingencies of the market (let us remember here that between 2000 and 2007 the air transport market surveyed in globally from IATA recorded net losses of almost $18 billion, of which 37 billion were concentrated in the period 2001-04 when air transport experienced the deepest and most prolonged crisis in its history, as a result of the events of the Twin Towers of 11/2001 XNUMX and the subsequent second gulf war).
The second effect: the Hamlet-like shareholder seriously influenced and – as we will soon see – even compromised the policy of alliances, which in the meantime had become vital in the context of a sector (that of the air transport of Full Service Carriers) characterized by great competition and from the need for dimensional consolidation at a transnational and, indeed, global level (let us remember here that between 1997 and 2000 the three great global alliances came to life – Star, OneWorld and Skyteam – which today bring together, for various reasons, a hundred companies around the world). This is how the alliance with KLM ended in 2000 (reasons: failure to progress the privatization procedure which was one of the prerequisites of the alliance; regulation of air traffic on the Linate Malpensa node not compliant with the agreements reached). Thus the assumption of the merger with AF-KLM in December 2003 "jumped"; in this case the Italian Hamlet also felt the need for a careful scenic "simulation", as proof of his torments: the Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers
necessary to kick off the privatization-merger coupling, after painful gestation, it was actually approved by the Government in November 2013. And the thing by everyone - Alitalia first but also Air France and KLM - was hailed as the decisive and long-awaited turning point , but…..; but when the obligatory but non-binding opinion of Parliament was obtained, the Government's determination failed and, in order to defend the Company's Italian character, the Prime Minister's Decree practically foundered.
With the "Italianness of Alitalia" thus peeped out - and we are almost at the end of the period of public control of Alitalia - the "new and ancient" theme, the one that, in essence, triggered the first "final scene" of the story " old” Alitalia: after another round of managerial waltz, here we are with an ad acta President, in charge of managing (finally!) the coveted privatization. Well: the procedure is done, with the assistance of advisors the company is charged with selling itself, after due diligence a binding offer from AirFrance-KLM is reached, a sale contract is signed, but….; but the Italo Hamlet reappears, this time with the cry "giving it to the French is like throwing it away", and the unions throw their sword of Brenno on the table: bring Alitalia Servizi back into Alitalia (Alitalia Servizi was the spin-off created in November 2005 to spin off non-core activities), plan Fintecna's entry into Alitalia's capital, re-plan "development". Result: AirFrance-KLM gets up from the table, the President of Alitalia resigns, AirFrance-KLM formally withdraws and, after a brief disorientation, the "captains brave" operation takes off.
The rest of the second part of the twenty years under discussion is news: extraordinary measures of unusual cost for the community assist the lightening operation of Alitalia, a new "bridging-financing" to allow the orderly transition to the new world, a company designed to measure of the new shareholders is spun off from the "old" Alitalia and sold to the consortium "promoted" by Berlusconi, the Antitrust regulations are suspended to allow the merger with AirOne (second Italian carrier) and two separate stories start: on the one hand the sad Extraordinary Administration of what has not passed on to the new shareholders; and, on the other, the hopeful launch of New Alitalia.
Well, one would have said: finally Alitalia has become private, it has remained entirely Italian, it has found shareholders who will know how to do their job well. Unfortunately, we know very well how the process went: the new shareholders of the new Alitalia, having collected quite a few losses, folded, Ethiad entered (49% to preserve the rights as a European company... and, perhaps , the famous “Italianness”), the losses continued to run (another couple of billions of € miscounted between 2012 and 2016) despite – and this is the most worrying fact and somewhat different from the past – the market surveyed from IATA in the same period has brought home enormous profits (one hundred billion $!). And now we are again wondering how to get out of it.
Perhaps, if we wanted to ask ourselves some final questions for this overview of the Alitaliano twenty years, we could ask ourselves: are all the managers who have succeeded one another at the helm of old and new Alitalia fools? All incompetent, tried and tested boyars and boyars, prestigious private, national and international managers? Or is there something we've never really wanted to deal with? For example, the actual size of our market for full service operators, the critical mass of our size, the destination Italy which seems made for low cost traffic (many airports, low yield inbound traffic), the strategic isolation in the context European, the need to seek operational "synergies" especially in this context? It's time to think about it and open your eyes.
