Today the deadline for submitting the binding offers for the purchase of the Alitalia brand has expired: according to the first rumors, the tender would have gone deserted, while once again the employees of the former national airline took to the streets to protest against the plan of Ita.
The auction base for the brand was € 290 million, plus VAT and tax charges pursuant to the law. An "unrealistic" figure that "makes the investment uneconomical", declared the executive president of Ita, Alfredo Altavilla, hinting that the newco would not participate in the tender.
Now we will move on to a second phase which will open up to lower offers. "The binding offers for the second phase must be submitted by the admitted subjects within three days of receiving the second letter of procedure with the request for binding offers for the second phase", reads the text of the announcement.
Should the second phase also be deserted, "the extraordinary commissioners will then proceed with the sale of the brand without procedural constraints towards the economic operator they have identified".
The brand will be made available to the winner of the competition by 31 December 2021.
Ita will take off on October 15 with 52 planes and 2,800 employees at the beginning, and then rise to 5,750 full-term workers in 2025, against the 10,500 of the former national airline. An international alliance is also foreseen because “Ita cannot survive alone”, as Altavilla pointed out. In the last few hours Delta has in fact started a "conversation" with Ita for a possible partnership, but specifying that it has no interest in investing directly in the newco.
It is precisely the industrial plan of Ita that is at the center of the protests of the workers, who for over a month have been making their voices heard in the squares of Rome and under its headquarters .
Today it was the turn of the Alitalia workers to sit in under the headquarters of the newco to demonstrate against the layoffs and the sale of the company. "We are Alitalia" was the unanimous chorus of the employees who, in a few days, will be without a contract.
(Unioneonline / F)
