Qatar Airways deal with Meridiana likely to fall through because of labour dispute

Qatar Airways needs to lay off a 'surplus' of 500 employees to bring the company to the right size.

Meridiana has 1,600 employees. Alessandro Chinaglia

The Italian government and officials of Meridiana airline were headed towards last-ditch negotiations with labour unions over Qatar Airways’ plan to buy a stake in the Italian carrier.

According to Italian law, if a company wants to lay off more than 15 people, it has 75 days to reach a deal with labour unions. That deadline fell tonight.

Meridiana’s labour unions were set to meet with the Italian government and the ­airline to approve or reject ­Qatar Airways’ purchase of a 49 per cent stake for an undisclosed price.

“The government is checking for the last time if the unions want to approve the conditions that Meridiana and Qatar Airways have settled for,” a Meridiana spokeswoman said.

“Qatar Airways was very clear. It said, ‘We want to do a deal with Meridiana, but we need to agree with the unions, otherwise the deal will not go on’,” she said. “If nothing happens on the union side until the end of today, Qatar Airways will exit.”

Qatar Airways declined to ­comment.

Meridiana has 1,600 employees. Qatar Airways needs to lay off a “surplus” of 500 employees, said the Meridiana spokeswoman. Those 500 employees are mostly cabin crew but there is a possibility that those workers could be hired back in the future, she said.

Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways’ chief executive, has said that the current owner of Meridiana would not “pump any more money” into the carrier. “If they don’t do that, the company may go under,” he said.

Meridiana is privately owned.

Qatar Airways has aggressive plans for the Italian airline. “You will see when Qatar Airways ­becomes an investor what their [Meridiana’s] size will become,” Mr Al Baker said at this month’s meeting in Dublin of the International Air Transport Association.

“You don’t expect me to be a substantial shareholder and fly MD-80s,” Mr Al Baker said, referring to the 30-year-old ­McDonnell Douglas MD-80 ­series aircraft the Italian carrier now operates.

He said that Qatar Airways complements Meridiana’s network, as the Arabian Gulf airline flies 70 times a week into Italy, so Qatar Airways would feed passengers into Meridiana’s domestic and European network.

Qatar Airways is the second of the big three Gulf carriers to show interest in an Italian airline. Etihad Airways acquired a 49 per cent stake in Alitalia, Italy’s national airline, in 2014.

Meridiana owns a fleet of 20 aircraft and carries 4 million passengers annually, according to its website.

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