The joint venture between Alitalia and Air France-KLM will end in January 2017, because the Italian carrier has chosen not to extend the agreement. The marketing, sales and distribution of cargo carried in bellies of Alitalia aircraft will no longer fall under the Air France-KLM influence once the change occurs.
Penned in 2009, the joint venture was conceived at a very different economic time, the carrier said. “These agreements are no longer beneficial, either commercially or strategically to the new Alitalia and its ambitious turnaround plan,” said Alitalia’s CEO Silvano Cassano. “They were negotiated when Alitalia was in a very different position, with the results that the agreements in their current forms favor the other party.”
In August 2014, Etihad Airways agreed to purchase a 49 percent interest in Alitalia, which went into effect in January this year. According to the Financial Times, the purchase was part of a €1.7 billion rescue plan to avoid Alitalia filing bankruptcy for a second time in six years, and for the Italian carrier to restructure with the aim of returning to profitability by 2017. Under the agreement, Alitalia now has access to Etihad’s substantial longhaul airfreight network through its hub at Abu Dhabi.
“In our plans we also want to deliver up-to-date cargo solutions to the Italian manufacturing industry, the second largest in Europe, which has growing needs to export goods worldwide,” Cassano said.
Air France-KLM’s stake in Alitalia was 25 percent when its deal was struck, according to Bloomberg, but shrank to less than 1 percent after the deal with Etihad.