 |
| Photo Air Italy |
Air Italy, has reluctantly decided it will have to pull away from the 'Public Service Obligation routes from Sardnina it announced on Tuesday 16th April. The news follows a meeting with President Solinas held in Villa Devoto in the presence of a delegation from Air Italy and Alitalia, however, the proposal given to the airlines was unsustainable according to Air Italy.
Air Italy has stated on several occasions that it is not able to share routes from Olbia with Alitalia, the routes just don't attract enough passengers to break even for two airlines. On 12th March, Air Italy agreed to fly from Olbia to Rome and from Olbia to Linate (and vice versa), without financial compensation from the government, to protect its staff of over 500 people and the investment made over the last 50 years in the service of Sardinia. Unfortunately, the proposed solution would not guarantee these objectives and would result in an even more negative result than that already envisaged in the proposed no-compensation solution. Therefore, having both Alitalia and Air Italy on the routes will make them untenable.
Air Italy said the proposal advanced yesterday was ambiguous with negligible concessions and no viable solution being offered. Equally, it failed to address the tariff imbalance that has been created with respect to Olbia, and Alghero and Cagliari.
As a direct result, Air Italy will now have to forgo the routes in favour of Alitalia – an airline under extraordinary administration that benefits from a bridging loan worth €900 million paid entirely by taxpayers.
The airline warns that as a result of the decisions made by the government, hundreds of Air Italy employees, thousands of families in Olbia and tens if not hundreds of thousands of travellers are now in total uncertainty because of this farcical situation. The firm says "Air Italy will now begin re-protecting passengers and immediately initiate a full assessment of how best to protect our personnel, and will be asking the relevant Ministries for support in this."
More you might like....