Alitalia's suppliers have begun seeking deposits and payments in advance and the bankrupt airline is doing its best to continue payments, the administrator overseeing the carrier's bankruptcy said.
In an interview with Il Sole 24 newspaper, Augusto Fantozzi said the airline had between 30 and 50 million euros in cash, less than the 70 million needed to operate on a monthly basis. "From the declaration of insolvency, the suppliers have begun asking for payments in advance and guarantee deposits," he said in the interview published on Sunday. "We will address all of the commitments. Nobody will be able to say that we are not paying."
In the first six months of the year, Alitalia ran up losses of 547 million euros, which were seen widening to 800 million euros by the end of September, he said.
Fantozzi was appointed by the government to oversee the bankruptcy proceedings at the end of August. His appointment and the bankruptcy filing are part of a rescue plan drafted for the government, which has sought to avoid the collapse of the flagship airline and the loss of thousands of jobs.
Under the plan, a group of investors recruited by the government's adviser, Intesa Sanpaolo, has offered to buy parts of Alitalia to create a new airline with domestic rival Air One.
Fantozzi confirmed the group, CAI, was the only one to have submitted a valid bid for the assets and that it had offered 400 million euros for those parts. These include the airline's flight operations related to the routes and airports it plans to cover, he said. Fantozzi also confirmed that Banca Leonardo had been hired to value Alitalia's assets.
FOREIGN PARTNER, UNIONS:
A foreign partner is still seen as crucial to the plan's success, and Intesa has approached Air France-KLM and Lufthansa about taking a minority stake in the airline. It also plans to meet British Airways to sound out its interest in taking part.
Alitalia runs the risk of failing to reimburse the 750 million euros in loans and bonds it has from the government, Fantozzi said. As for its 1.2 billion euros of debt, Fantozzi said he was looking to pay it down partly with proceeds from the sale of grounded airplanes from the Alitalia's aging fleet.
"There are many requests and we will not have any trouble selling them," he said, estimating he could raise hundreds of millions of euros from the sale. "Even for cargo (services), there are offers," he added.
And Marco Tronchetti Provera, head of the Pirelli & C, told reporters on the margins of a business conference near Cernobbio, a lakeside town north of Milan, that the holding company would invest 10 to 20 mion euros.