No gas could ground Alitalia

The failing Italian airline Alitalia will not be able to guarantee all of its flights after the weekend, because there is not enough money to fuel the planes. The stark warning came from the man appointed by the government as Alitalia’s bankruptcy administrator, according to union representatives at rescue talks.

Augusto Fantozzi was charged with trying to find agreement between unions and a group of Italian investors in talks about selling off profitable parts of the airline.

Alitalia loses three million euros a day, and had to go into administration at the end of August. It has been battling financial woes for years, having been bailed out several times by the government which owns just under half of the carrier. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is determined to keep the carrier in Italian hands.

But with Friday’s deadline came the collapse of negotiations. The money-men walked away, saying the unions were being intransigent. It is thought they were unhappy about redundancies, contracts and pay-cuts. At Rome’s Fiumicino airport, around 150 cabin staff staged a spontaneous demonstration.

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