Alitalias imminent demise leads to flood of MD-80s

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Member for

19 years 8 months

Posts: 454

Apparently we can expect a huge influx of MD-80s onto the market becasue Alitalia has literaly a few months to go. Giancarlo Cimoli has been unable to work his magic there like he did for the railways, and with the 400m euro loan to be payed back by late september they havent a hope in hell of repaying even a quarter of the money. Which begs the question how many of the MD-80s will get sold or scrapped. The ones that are sold i expect will go eastwards with a few remaining in Italy as the fleet of a lo-co filling some of the gaps in the European scheduale. I believe they have around 84 in total, most dating from the late 80s/early 90s

Original post

Member for

20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

If Alitalia do go bust I would expect a new airline to be formed like Swiss or SN Brussels. Weather they would keep the MD-80s is another question.

Member for

19 years 8 months

Posts: 454

I'm not so sure it would be formed "from the ruin" of Alitalia like Swiss was from Swissair, because Alitalia really won't have anything left. Any assets will be sold off and the money will go straight to the governement because of EU regulations to do with the loan.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,956

The fact that flag carriers like the original SwissAir, Sabena, and now potentially Alitalia and Olympic, can just go by the wayside, is just asinine. Sure, proud airlines such as Pan Am and TWA have suffered similar fates, but there were always big airlines left in their wake (AA, UA, DL, NW, etc.). Although the survival of some of those guys is questionable at the moment, as well. But when a country has a single flag carrier and they disappear, that is just catastrophic. The Italian community world wide is enormous. Who's going to pick up the slack now for people wanted to fly to and from Italy from long distances? I just think that there should be a little more leniency in terms of being allowed more time to pay back these debts, at the expense of shutting down an airline with so much tradition.

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20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

Greekdude as much as I would like to agree why should Alitalia being given special treatment and others not. I know it sounds heartless and I know there are people involved and I may be in a similar situation (god forbid) in future years but at the end of the day this is business. Alitalia have had plenty of time to prepare for this sort of situation. Why arnt BA,LH or AF in this situation? because they planned for the future. The loans were illegal in the first place so now they have to face up to the situation they are in.

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 1,887

Perhaps European could pick some up. They are looking for a B737-200 replacement. Jet X already have two, they might want some more

Member for

19 years 8 months

Posts: 454

i agree that it's catastrophic the way flag carriers go under but in Alitalias case it's been coming to them for a long time. They've failed to make a profit for 12 consecutive years! They've had over a decade to sort it out but haven't, yet BA managed to do it in 3 years. It's their own fault, now finally they're taking notice but it's 12 years too late. I expect Air France and Swiss will take over most AZ routes in the short term. AZ wanted to join the AF/KLM group but they said AZ must sort out their finances first, so they could make alot out of taking over routes. Also, Swiss is set to become part of Luftthansa, so Milan could be a real earner for them.

In Olympics case I've allways felt it must be really difficult to make it work. Greece is made up of like hundreds of islands, so apart from Athens which is your next hub? None of them are big enough to support large pax operations, yet they all demand air services.

Malevs in a bad way too!

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,956

In Olympics case I've allways felt it must be really difficult to make it work. Greece is made up of like hundreds of islands, so apart from Athens which is your next hub? None of them are big enough to support large pax operations, yet they all demand air services.
Their 2nd hub would be SKG, but they don't operate long haul from there, just intra-European and island routes. I've always felt that there's no reason for airlines like Alitalia and Olympic to not be profitable, considering they are both based in tourist mecca's. Especially in the summer season. I don't know about the Italian community, but I know the majority of the 10 million Greeks abroad, prefer to fly Olympic for a plethora of reasons, not the least of which is the proverbial language barrier. Olympic's problem is simple. They have like 10 people doing the job a single person can do. They brought Rod Lynch from BA's Speedwing team in a few years ago to try and turn the airline around. He tried to consolidate the brass by eliminating much of the the unnecessary personel. Needless to say, they got rid of him because the unions got pissed off and they threatened to strike all the time. Of course they blamed everything on him, claiming that Olympic was in worse shape after he left than it was when he got there. Bunch of idiots. What OA needs is an airline like LH or BA to buy them out, go in there, and kick some ass. They Greece will complain initially, but they did the same thing when they brought in Rehagel to coach the soccer team. God forbid they hire a German. The rest as they say, is history.

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 107

The huge MD-82-fleet "saved" Alitalia for many years and Alitalia is on the other hand acting like an airline with thick pockets.

Alitalia is sadly one of the big european airlines who did not learned from the painful lessons. Alitalia is reacting very slowly to changing conditions.

As long as an airline like Alitalia is in the position to take new B777´s and to phase out MD-11´s etc. the airline is simply not acting like an airline with huge financial problems.

Alitalia is currently the biggest operator of the MD-80 outside the USA (followed by SAS and Iberia) and it´s simply crazy that Boeing wanted to place new B737´s there a few yars ago.

Alitalia was once one of the most loyal costumers of McDonnell Douglas the DC-9 and MD-80 did a very good job.

Sadly Boeing is not really supporting MD-80-ops and/or offering modifications like a new hushkit.

But that´s another story...

Thank you

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 4,333

It's well known that Boeing took ober MD just for their military activities/customers and to get rid of one competitor.
They never intended to promote MD's products. (See MD95/B717 fate ...)

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 455

Hi Guys,

Haven't been on for a while, but had to weigh in on this topic.

What I'm about to say may sound cold, and I don't mean to offend any airline workers on the forum. Airlines like Alitalia are doomed unless they can get their labour unions under control. Long gone are the days where being paid a lot of money for front line work is justified (perhaps it was never really justified, people just paid higher tickets without knowing any better). AC faced the same thing here in Canada, the unions had to face reality, back down or be reasonable or have no airline at all and forfeit your livelihood.

Member for

19 years 8 months

Posts: 454

Would have to agree there.

I started this topic a while ago but it seems AZ have escaped again. They've struck adeal tp pay back the loan in stages, and have devised a turnaround plan with the backing of the EU, and a key part of this planis sponsorship. Not surprisingly, most of the sponsers getting involved with them are companies in which the Italian government has a significant minority stake, or have close relations in supplying the govermnet. Of course, this way AZ get their money indirectly from the government, but it's perfectly legal...