ROME – Italian airline Alitalia faces a new financial crisis and forces the banks to intervene, foreseeing cuts across the board to pilot salaries and 1,400 employees at risk of losing their jobs, La Repubblica reports.

 Alitalia is always the same, and Etihad Airways cannot pull it out from the doldrums. The new industrial plan, outlined in their principal guidelines from the CDA (Company Board of Directors) on Friday, aims to put the company back in order again under the wave of a crisis which seems irreversible.

 Etihad, new minority owner (forced by EU rules) with 49 percent, cannot insert directly other resources into Alitalia, suffering the loss of flying rights given to European countries. In fact, if Etihad go again above the quota, Alitalia could become to all effects an airline of the Persian Gulf.

 One solution to the crisis, always within the net of the political tsunami, would be to lay the take-all ace in place, for one more time, in the hands of the Department of the Treasury. Nothing has so far been decided, but the situation is grave and it is possible that public money would be the quickest route at this stage to avoid complete disaster.

 The ‘renationalisation’ of Alitalia is another potential method which has been offered up to the table, as the doors of Lufthansa, the largest German airline group and very friendly with Etihad, are always open. If the German route was indeed taken, this could see Alitalia out of the Sky Team and far from the arms of Air-France – KLM which has sucked up tens of millions of euros each year from the jugular vein of the Italian airline.

 But what about the future for the passengers and employees? 300 employees are to face unemployment, 1,100 are to be transferred to other companies, 15 aircrafts to be placed firmly on the ground and cuts are expected to the contracts and salaries of pilots and assistants.

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