Rome Airport Disrupted as Alitalia Staff Debate Planned Cuts

December 24, 2003

Rome Airport Disrupted as Alitalia Staff Debate Planned Cuts 
Channel News Asia, Singapore
 
ROME : Air travellers faced disruption at Rome's main airport as national 
carrier Alitalia cancelled several flights while staff met to discuss the 
airline's plans to cut hundreds of jobs.

Flights to Brussels, Bucharest, Milan, and two links with Calgari on the 
Italian Mediterranean island of Sardinia were cancelled, while others were 
delayed, airport sources said. Police were detailed to ensure passenger access 
to the airport.

Travellers were forced to use a single passageway to get in and out of the 
airport under heavy police surveillance, the Telenews agency reported.

Alitalia staff were discussing restructuring plans by the airline which would 
involve cutting 1,500 of the company's 21,000 jobs, most of them at Rome's 
Fiumicino airport, and outsourcing a further 1,200.

The plan also foresees a 1.2-billion-euro (1.4-billion-dollar) investment in 
renewing the state-controlled company's fleet.

"Management must withdraw its plan and the government must make its position 
known as soon as possible on ways to help the airline recover," said Rome's 
mayor Walter Veltroni, who joined the meeting.

A surprise strike by ground staff in protest at the plans forced Alitalia to 
cancel dozens of flights at the airport last Wednesday.

On Sunday the government announced it would get tough on strikers it considered 
in breach of Italy's legislation on industrial action, following a series of 
crippling wildcat public transport strikes which began in early December.

A round-table discussion between the government, Alitalia management and the 
unions has been scheduled for December 29.

A proposed restructuring of Alitalia would enable the company to resume an 
alliance it had previously set up with carriers Air France and KLM.

The Italian government gave the go-ahead for this last month with a decree 
authorising the privatisation of Alitalia and the reduction of the state 
holding in the company to less than 51 percent, compared to its present 62.39 
percent.

At the proposal of the government as majority shareholder, Alitalia's 
management agreed to a moratorium on its plan until January 31.

Alitalia's accounts plunged into deficit in the third quarter of this year with 
losses of 47.4 million euros before tax and exceptional expenditure.

The airline will use up its financial resources and sink into a deep, possibly 
irreversible crisis within 18 months if it fails to cut costs Chairman 
Francesco Mengozzi was quoted last month as saying.

 
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