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Alitalia hit by fifth day of crippling labour unrest
By Tony Barber in Rome
Published: January 24 2006 02:00 | Last updated: January 24 2006 02:00
Alitalia was under growing pressure yesterday as a fifth successive day of labour unrest forced it to cancel dozens of flights and Italian government ministers voiced increasing impatience with the lossmaking national flagcarrier.
Alitalia's share price slumped almost 8.7 per cent to €1.043 after the airline's operations were crippled by protests involving maintenance crews opposed to the restructuring plans of Giancarlo Cimoli, chief executive.
Alitalia has cancelled more than 300 flights since Thursday in what has been a bitter blow to Mr Cimoli's efforts to polish the airline's image after a successful €1bn ($1.2bn) capital increase last month.
Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, asked on Italian radio if the government might allow Alitalia's closure, replied: "It isn't easy to do things like that. National pride is involved in having a flagship carrier [...] For sure, if the workers didn't hold dozens and dozens of strikes, and instead behaved like Air France workers, things would be going better atAlitalia."
Roberto Maroni, Italy's labour minister and a member of the populist Northern League party, says it would be no disaster if Alitalia went bankrupt, but his views are not consideredrepresentative of the whole government.
Alitalia's net losses between 1999 and 2004 amounted to about €2.4bn, and rival airlines are indignant that the European Commission approved a rescue plan last year that they suspect involved disguised state aid.
Under the plan, Alitalia was split into a flight operations unit and a separate ground services business. The government cut its stake in the airline to 49.9 per cent from 62.3 per cent.
With a national election on April 9, political considerations are playing a part in Alitalia's affairs, and the government will meet trade union leaders tomorrow to discuss their grievances.
Although the unions say they are not pressing for Mr Cimoli's dismissal, at least one minister in Mr Berlusconi's ruling coalition has made clear he holds Mr Cimoli responsible for the latest disturbances.
Giovanni Alemanno of the National Alliance, the government's second-largest party, said that, if Wednesday's talks upheld the unions' view that Alitalia was poorly managed, "then it would be Cimoli's position that would be put up for discussion".
Mr Cimoli took over at Alitalia in May 2004 after an outbreak of labour unrest that prompted the government to sack the old management. He says his strategy is not to become a low-cost airline, or to emulate Lufthansa and Air France-KLM, but to be strong in Italy's domestic market and well-linked to eastern Europe, north Africa, the US and the Far East.