posted
The company, which has been in deep trouble for more than a year, said it would cut back the number of flights to save money and try to pay bills.
Besides outstanding fuel payments it also owes money to hotels where pilots and cabin crew stay during stopovers and also to caterers who provide in flight meals.
Alitalia has been losing more than £1 million a day and was bailed out earlier this year with a £300 million loan from the government - which many other airlines said was illegal.
Administrator Augusto Fantozzi has been brought in try and save the airline from total bankruptcy but has faced fierce opposition from trade unions, with protests hitting airports and leading to flight cancellations.
Mr Fantozzi has told unions that in order to save Alitalia jobs must go and costs cut but they have refused to accept his demands pushing the airline to complete collapse. Pilots especially are refusing to change their contracts - seen as one of the most lucrative in the airline industry with average work hours a year being 500, 100 less than colleagues at Lufthansa and Air France.
A consortium of Italian airlines, CAI, has offered to step in and take control and Mr Fantozzi has urged the unions to accept their proposal but they have refused and on Friday walked out of talks.
As further last minute talks ground to a halt Mr Fantozzi said: "From Monday flights will no longer be guaranteed because of problems over fuel payments. The situation is going downhill rapidly."
The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has blamed the airline's problems on the "left wing unions" and said that he would personally be very upset if Alitalia collapsed.
Mr Berlusconi has urged the welfare minister, Maurizio Sacconi, and the transport minister, Aletro Matteoli to try and help mediate between the unions and the consortium. In order to survive Alitalia must slash at least 5,000 of its 20,000 jobs, the airlines flies to London from several cities across Italy.
The CAI rescue plan would see a £700 million investment and a merger with Italy's second airline, Air One, as well as a partnership with a foreign carrier.
Earlier this year Air France expressed an interest in taking over Alitalia but the talks collapsed and in recent days there has been speculation that British Airways and Lufthansa were also interested.
The possible total collapse of Alitalia comes just hours after thousands of British holidaymakers were left stranded by the grounding of XL and travel experts have warned other airlines facing failure because of the credit crunch.
Alitalia would be the first European flag-carrier to go bust since Sabena, of Belgium, and Swissair in 2001.
On Saturday night the main unions involved in the Alitalia crisis were summoned to a meeting due to start at 9pm local time at Berlusconi's office in central Rome.
Meanwhile Alitalia call centres were flooded with worried calls from passengers who held tickets, one operator said: "No-one has told us anything, we are just telling people not to panic and turn up as booked."
A statement on the website of Italy's civil aviation authority Enac said Alitalia's license to operate was also at risk if it failed to ensure flights took off.
Enac's president Vito Riggio said: "If there is no solution very soon that guarantees the continuity of the carrier's operations, the basis on which Enac issued Alitalia with a six-month provisional license will no longer be met.''
Speaking at a rally in Bari, Mr Berlusconi said: "It's clear that the destiny of Alitalia is being threatened by the unreasonable behaviour of some of its employees and we can see the strong influence of the left.
"They don't seem to understand the disaster that would befall the nation if Alitalia wound up in the courts with its balance books out. I really hope this won't happen.''
A sign of just how bad the crisis is was when Mr Fantozzi met Pope Benedict XVI at Rome airport as he boarded his papal Alitalia flight to France.
posted
It'll take more than the Pope to save us all from this financial crisis I can tell you!
Posts: 1917 | From: WALES | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
Don't expect so... History teaches us that there is only one solution: war. It is the troubled time before every war is starting. War destroys and makes money at the same time.
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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