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A last-ditch attempt to find a buyer for crisis-stricken flag carrier Alitalia will be made today as Italy’s transport minister warned that the airline’s planes could be grounded within a week.Alitalia’s special administrator will put the national carrier up for sale, but buyers are thin on the ground.

Unions last week rejected a €1bn (£791m) rescue bid by the CAI consortium of Italian businesses because the plan involved the loss of 3,000 jobs and more stringent working conditions for remaining staff.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

Italy’s economic development ministry has put low cost airline Volare up for sale again, meeting a recent state council court demand, said Alitalia SpA, which bought Volare in a previous auction.

The ministry-appointed extraordinary commissioner for Volare previously put the carrier up for auction. However, Italy’s Air One airline challenged the way the auction was conducted and Alitalia’s win.

source: Forbes

Italy is seeking solutions for Alitalia that would keep it both Italian and privately owned, the government said Saturday, responding to EU warnings against renationalising the ailing air carrier.

Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti said the new government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was “seeking a solution which is Italian and fundamentally private“.

Tremonti said Berlusconi’s new government was committed to attracting Italian investors to Alitalia.

source: Yahoo!

Italy’s failing flag-carrier, Alitalia, faces a crucial week when its future looks likely to be decided at least as much by politics as economics.

Having made the salvation of the group’s “Italianness” central to his successful election campaign, Silvio Berlusconi has to deliver on the promise of an alternative solution to the bid tabled and then withdrawn by Air France-KLM. The group has only enough cash to stay airborne until about the end of May.

Representatives of the incoming and outgoing governments agreed to find a way to keep Alitalia going while its fate was decided. Sources close to the talks said it could include a line of credit worth €100m (£80m) to €150m.

source: Guardian.co.uk

Some 146 flights at Milan’s airports were cancelled on Tuesday when ground staff went on strike to protest against Alitalia’s plans to scale back its presence in northern Italy.

Airport sources said 102 flights were cancelled at Malpensa airport, one of Alitalia’s two hubs, and 44 at Linate, Milan’s smaller airport, during the four-hour stoppage.

source: Reuters

Alitalia SpA, the state-controlled airline Italy is trying to sell, is cutting flights at Milan’s Malpensa airport because it’s “economically impossible‘’ to maintain two hubs.Alitalia will eliminate unprofitable routes, keeping just three of its current 17 intercontinental flights at Malpensa while increasing traffic at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, the carrier said in a slide presentation on its Web site today. Mounting losses make it impossible to keep two hubs, the company said in the presentation of its summer 2008 schedule.

source: Bloomberg

The board of Alitalia chose Air France-KLM as its preferred buyer on Friday, saying the French-Dutch carrier was a better match than a small Italian airline favored by the unions.

Its unanimous decision on Air France-KLM’s non-binding offer must still be approved by the government, which holds a 49.9 percent stake in the money-losing flagship airline and might face pressure against letting it pass into foreign hands.

source: Reuters

Air France-KLM has offered a share swap and a capital increase of €750 million (US$1 billion) as part of its bid for Alitalia, the chairman of the Franco-Dutch airline was quoted as saying.

The group would renew Alitalia’s aging fleet and cut up to 1,700 jobs, Jean-Cyril Spinetta was quoted as saying in Italian newspapers Sunday.

Alitalia is scheduled to hold a board of directors meeting Tuesday to announce a decision on which sole bidder to open negotiations with. The Italian government, which has a 49.9 percent stake in the struggling airline, met earlier this week but failed to decide on a preferred bidder.

source: International Herald Tribune

The chaos surrounding the auction of an Italian government stake in Alitalia grew on Thursday, as Singapore Airlines denied it was interested in buying any part of the carrier less than an hour after Alitalia said it had received an offer.

Alitalia said a group consisting of Singapore Airlines, Evergreen Special Situation Fund and THL Transportation Equities Fund wanted to buy the 49.9% stake that’s for sale. The airline said it passed the details onto the Italian government.

source: Market Watch

The chaos surrounding the auction of an Italian government stake in Alitalia grew on Thursday, as Singapore Airlines denied it was interested in buying any part of the carrier less than an hour after Alitalia said it had received an offer.

Alitalia said a group consisting of Singapore Airlines, Evergreen Special Situation Fund and THL Transportation Equities Fund wanted to buy the 49.9% stake that’s for sale. The airline said it passed the details onto the Italian government.

source: Market Watch