Well, last week brought the news that Italy's bankrupt "flag-carrier" airline, Alitalia, had finally been sold to a group of private investors headed by the chair of Piaggio--the Tuscan company that makes most of Italy's motor scooters (yes, including Vespas).
Their very first, rather un-encouraging, statement was that they were shopping around for another partner, preferably another major airline. It was no big secret that Air France/KLM was the one being wooed, and now they've made it official. Air France now owns a 25% share of the new Altialia.
Alrady, thigns are looking a bit confusing. On Monday, Bloomberg News reported that the plan woudl be to make Rome-Fiurmicino and Milan-Malpensa into hubs on the same level as Paris-CDG and Amsterdam-Shciphol. One can only hope.
Then today (Wednesday, Jan 13) Bloomberg turned around and said that Air France seems to be indicating that Alitalia's effort to keep both Rome and Milan as equal hubs was unsustainable.
They seemed to be framing it as the old Italian bickering between north and south, but it really seems to be more businessmen versus tourists. The Air France-KLM CEO said that ""Italy is not a big enough market to support two airport bases offering intercontinental flights," and so far all indications are that these besuited businessmen are aiming to make Milan the major hub. This might make sense to someone going over to ink a manufacturing deal or engage in a little international finance, but Rome is still top of the charts for most leisure travelers (the majority of whom don't want to spend more time in Milan than it takes to see The Last Supper).
Unlike other failed an relaunched European airlines like Sabena and Swiss Air, Alitalia will not be rebranding itself--at least, not yet. The planes, logos, flight attendant uniforms, and name will all stay the same, but do expect to see the number and frequeny of flights decrease even further.
No worries, though: no-frills airlines like Ryanair are already staking their claims to take up the slack and become major players in the domestic and regional Italy air market. Nothing like a little healthy competition to keep fares down and open new markets and routes, eh? So long as the new Alitalia stays healthy and solvent, this can only mean good news for travelers.
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