It’s either a marriage made in heaven or a doomed romance sure to bring the audience to tears. ANA, Japan’s #2 airline, has signed a codeshare and loyalty deal with long-ailing Alitalia, which may not even live long enough to make the October wedding date.
But in case it does—and see below for the current ‘medical report’—the new deal will see ANA able to sell tickets to Italy for the first time, putting its label on Alitalia’s flights to Rome and Milan from Tokyo. It will also sell connecting flights on to Turin, Florence, Bologna, Venice and Naples.
In return, Alitalia will be able to sell Alitalia-branded tickets on ANA’s flights to Sapporo, Sendai, Osaka, Fukuoka and Okinawa from Tokyo. ANA doesn’t operate any flights between Japan and Italy. Both airlines’ loyalty members will be able to earn and spend on the code-shared flights.
As to Alitalia’s future: the airline that has lingered at death’s door many times before, there’s more news, growing mainly out of Italy’s political deadlock, which is likely to result in postponing the April 30 deadline for a sale or breakup until September. The airline, in a seeming death spiral since being abandoned two years ago by Etihad, its major funder and 49% owner, is living on government loans intended to keep it flying while trustees try to find a buyer.
Setting aside increasingly unlikely rumors that Lufthansa, or Ryanair, or Air France/KLM will buy it intact, the trustees continue to search for other investors. At this point, they are considering a plan in which the government lending agency would end up holding 49% of the company if Italian investors could be found to take the other 51%. Foreign investors are limited to 49% ownership, although that might not be an issue if Alitalia ends up sold for parts.
