Italy’s airline merry-go-round has taken two new turns in the past couple of weeks: The government has stopped hoping Alitalia can be sold before the March 4 election, and Meridiana, renamed Air Italy, has offered itself as a new flag airline for the country.
Italian officials had hoped to find a buyer for bankrupt Alitalia before the election, but it may be the election that is undoing that effort. The three qualified bidders—Lufthansa, EasyJet and Cerberus Capital—are asked to pledge keeping Alitalia operating as an airline. Each has said it would, but would need to make big modifications in the company and staff, and all are concerned that if they buy now, a new government might tie their hands.
Meanwhile, Meridiana, which is based on the Italian island of Sardinia, has taken on the name of Air Italy, a small northern regional carrier it bought in 2011. Meridiana is known mainly as a leisure airline, connecting Italian cities with vacation destinations. It proposes to ramp up service within Italy and add more international flights, including more to North America. Its plans include doubling its fleet.
In a curious way, this is another arena for the drama of the Middle East airlines. Alitalia’s collapse came on the refusal of Etihad, which owns 49%, to keep funding the money-losing airline. Air Italy is 49% owned by Etihad’s rival, Qatar Airways; the rest is owned by Alisarda, a Sardinian company originally founded by the Aga Khan.
