Alitalia union boss philosophical about job losses ahead of Etihad stake sale

Giovanni Galiotto is confident he has secured a good deal for members with 71 pilots to be made redundant.

Giovanni Galiotto, centre, the president of Anpac, with Danilo Recine, right and Riccardo Canestrari outside the Alitalia headquarters at Rome’s Fiumicino airport. Chris Warde-Jones for The National

Giovanni Galiotto says that 71 members of his union stand to lose their jobs when Etihad Airways buys its stake in Alitalia – but all things considered, that’s a fair outcome.

Roughly five years ago, Alitalia was privatised and 850 pilots lost their jobs. This time, Mr Galiotto thinks he has snatched a better deal for the scores of pilots he represents as the president of Anpac, the Associazione Nazionale Piloti Aviazione Commerciale.

“Seventy one pilots will be made redundant. But they will have the chance to apply for a job with Etihad. We were officially told that Etihad will have a short recruitment process for Alitalia pilots. They will have the chance to relocate to Abu Dhabi and fly with Etihad,” Mr Galiotto said at his office near Fiumicino Airport in Rome.

“If we find 71 volunteers to go … we will have zero redundancies. We are trying to get a chance for them to come after three years to Alitalia – if Alitalia has the need to employ more pilots,” he added.

Etihad aims to take a stake of up to 49 per cent in Alitalia. Etihad is demanding downsizing measures and thousands of job losses at the loss-making airline – just as it did when it took equity stakes in Air Serbia and Air Seychelles.

Etihad declined comment yesterday on its plans for Alitalia.

“We feel redundancies are really necessary. Our opinion is that it is wrong to blame Etihad for redundancies, because these redundancies are the fruit of the privatisation,” said Mr Galiotto.

“Under the principle of saving people, you need to accept some loss. We lost 10,000 people in 2009 [in the privatisation] and we lost 850 pilots.”

Since its relaunch in 2009, Alitalia has lost millions of euros and been subject to political interference.

Last year, Alitalia received a €500 million (Dh2.48 billion) government-facilitated rescue package. However, the company, which is losing €1.5m a day and is in debt to the tune of €1bn, again risks running out of cash by August if a cash-rich partner cannot be found.

“There was a complete lack of strategy. Alitalia was run by politicians. The last CEO, [Andrea] Ragnetti, he was supposed to run the company for two years, after the first year he was kindly asked to go home,” said Mr Galiotto.

Alitalia is also plagued by a number of loss-making routes, which were meant to serve the interests of some politicians.

“If we have one minister that flies to Albenga [in northern Italy], we must fly from Rome to Albenga every day. And then, you realise that your load factor is 74-75 per cent and you want to make your company profitable,” he said.

Mr Galiotto said he recognised that Etihad has a plan and hailed its strategy that focuses on “equity alliances”.

“If you invest in stakes in different airlines in different parts of the world, it’s like playing in Wall Street. Some will be losing, some will be winning. You can diversify,” he said.

Another reason Mr Galiotto is in favour of the Alitalia-Etihad deal is that he sees Etihad as being run by people who “follow the rules”.

He said: “In Italy, the concept of rules is quite complicated. At a precise moment that you think about a rule, you are thinking about a way to circumvent it.

“This is the other reason that we strongly feel the need to have somebody foreign to rule our company.”

Anpac and two other professional unions decided to call off a strike that was scheduled from Sunday.

Separately from the pilots, the process to get Alitalia’s general unions to sign up for the Etihad deal has been far from smooth. Last week, the CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labour), the country’s largest trade union, objected to the terms of the deal.

In Mr Galiotto’s opinion, the Alitalia chief executive, Gabriele Del Torchio, should give the unions a deadline to let their members vote on a deal – or else shut down the company.

“If we get 50 per cent plus one, we keep going with the process, otherwise we will shut down the company,” he said.

“I don’t think that the general unions will be able to explain to their members why the company is shutting down and we will have 12,000 people unemployed – just because they are fighting about the philosophy of the contract.”

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