Etihad and Alitalia unveiled two Airbus A330-200 aircraft in Milan on Monday to showcase Expo 2015, which will be hosted by the city.
But the celebrations at Malpensa Airport contrasted sharply with a less festive mood elsewhere in Europe’s aviation sector – where a strike by Lufthansa pilots caused flight disruption throughout the continent.
“What we bring with Malpensa is global connectivity,” said James Hogan, the president and chief executive of Etihad Airways. “Alitalia is not only getting alliance, but a federation of carriers.”
The development comes months after Etihad agreed to buy a 49 per cent stake in the loss-making Italian airline. Regulatory approval is hoped to be secured by the end of the year.
“When we started many years ago, it was difficult to think that Alitalia would celebrate the expo as we are today,” said Giuseppe Sala, the chief executive of the Expo 2015 company.
Milan, the commercial capital of Italy, is expected to attract about 20 million visitors to the Expo next year.
Alitalia and Etihad have committed to buy 300,000 tickets for the Expo, and to sell them to their customers.
Etihad’s planned acquisition of Alitalia is the latest in a slew of minority stake purchases in recent years, including Germany’s Air Berlin, Virgin Australia, and India’s Jet Airways. Mr Hogan hopes to secure approval from regulators by the end of the year for the Alitalia deal.
“The team has been very proactive in working with the EU and their requirements, we’re hoping to secure approval by the end of the year,” said Mr Hogan.
Shareholders have pressed Alitalia, which has been a loss-making airline for more than a decade, to shed jobs amid a restructuring plan intended to make Alitalia break even by 2017.
Etihad’s investment in Alitalia is part of a wider investment drive in the country. Mubadala, for example, has extensive investments in Italy, including equity stakes in Ferrari and Piaggio.
There are also 300 Italian companies operating in the UAE, which is also home to 10,000 citizens of Italy.
The expansion of Arabian Gulf carriers in Europe is stoking tension with European competitors as the industry faces increased competitive pressures.
Lufthansa said on Monday that the longest strike campaign in its history would ground about 1,500 flights over two days.
The strike comes days after the German airline said it would drop flights to Abu Dhabi by next year because the route was unprofitable and in protest of what the German carrier regarded as intense competition from rivals supported by Gulf carriers.
Air Berlin, in which Etihad has a minority stake, said German regulators refused to grant approval for 34 codeshare flights with Etihad. Air Berlin, in coordination with a team from Etihad, are pursuing talks this week to resolve the “misunderstanding on the interpretation of the codeshare provisions”.
“The Etihad model is a different model to our competitors,” said Mr Hogan. “Their action is to protect their market position. I would argue that we give great connectivity to Germany.
“We are invested in Germany. We would obviously like to see Air Berlin be rebuilt and to open up inbound and outbound traffic, and it’s an important relationship between the UAE and Germany so let’s see how the talks go.”
halsayegh@thenational.ae
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