As the final deadline passed for Alitalia's auction, Lufthansa said it will not bid, but Air France-KLM is making an offer for the unprofitable Italian national carrier.
The Franco-Dutch airline is the leading candidate to buy a 49.9% stake in Alitalia, but reportedly at a lower price than Rome wants. Air France-KLM's Chief Executive Jean-Cyril Spinetta has said: "Any consolidation in Europe must improve the profitability of the new group."
Air France-KLM has 569 planes, 102,000 employees and turnover in its last financial year of 23 billion euros. Alitalia has a fleet one third the size and a workforce of 18,000. Its turnover last year was 4.37 billion euros, but is losing more than one million euros a day.
Business Finance professor Fabio Verna said: "Air France KLM is the logical potential buyer for Alitalia, so it's definitely an important opportunity for our country and for our national airline, the negative aspect is that probably it won't be our national airline anymore."
Italian low cost carrier Air One also plans a bid. That would keep Alitalia in Italian hands, but analysts questioned whether the smaller airline could achieve a takeover of a company with such huge problems.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has said he hopes Alitalia will go to the best bidder, with Italian ownership a secondary consideration. Alitalia is expected to pick a bidder in mid-December with which to start exclusive talks.
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