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MILAN—Alitalia
SpA’s owners began talks yesterday to sell a stake in
the company to Air France-KLM Group or Deutsche
Lufthansa AG, giving one of the carriers a partnership
with the airline that will control half of the Italian
market.
CAI, the
Italian investor group led by businessman Roberto
Colaninno, was scheduled to meet management of Air
France on Wednesday in Paris and with Lufthansa today.
CAI is leading a state-backed rescue to merge Alitalia’s
flight business with domestic competitor Air One SpA,
leaving the government to liquidate Alitalia’s debt and
other assets.
“It
would be a bargain for them,” said Francesco Giavazzi,
an economics professor at Bocconi University in Milan
and a former director general of the Italian Treasury.
“They don’t even have to pay Alitalia’s debt.”
The
Italian government has been trying to sell its
49.9-percent stake in Alitalia for more than two years
and both Air France and Lufthansa participated in failed
auctions for the airline. They are interested in buying
a stake in Alitalia because it has slots at Europe’s
busiest airports and a fleet valued at €2 billion.
Alitalia
controls almost two- thirds of the Rome-Milan route, the
second busiest in Europe, and has 10 pairs of slots at
London’s Heathrow, Europe’s biggest airport. The
Heathrow slots alone are worth about €300 million, based
on Deloitte & Touche estimates. Alitalia in December
sold three pairs of slots at Heathrow for €92 million.
Alitalia’s “slots at London Heathrow are the goose that
lays the golden egg,” said Oliviero Baccelli, deputy
director of Bocconi University’s Center of Regional,
Transport and Tourism Economy in Milan.
The
value of Heathrow slots has soared since the “open
skies” agreement, which allows new entrants to fly
between the US and European airports. Any carrier who
acquires a slot to land a plane at Heathrow is free to
change the route, meaning an Alitalia Rome-London slot
could become a London-New York route once acquired.
Europe’s biggest carriers are vying to buy rivals to expand
networks and cut costs. Higher energy bills and
shrinking traffic are forcing many airlines to reduce
capacity and slash jobs. Lufthansa and Air France are
bidding for Austrian Airlines AG. The German carrier in
December bought a stake in JetBlue Airways Corp. of the
US and 45 percent of Brussels Airlines last month.
British Airways announced on July 29 that it planned to
merge with Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espańa SA.
Alitalia’s merger with Air One will boost the new
carrier’s share of the Italian market to almost 56
percent from 30 percent now. CAI intends to bring back
some international flights to Milan’s Malpensa airport,
where Lufthansa already plans to boost its flights from
next year.
Still,
Air France already owns a 2-percent stake in Alitalia
and both airlines are part of the SkyTeam global
alliance.
Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed
Alitalia at an October 6 meeting in Berlin. Merkel said
she would welcome cooperation between the two carriers
“with all her heart.” Italian government officials have
said they favor Lufthansa, and Berlusconi called Air
France’s failed bid for Alitalia earlier this year
“offensive.” (Bloomberg) |
