I got this intresting press release from European Low Fares Airline Association (Sorry it's only in English)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : 19 July, 2004
ELFAA outraged at soft line proposed by EC in Alitalia State Aid Case
Brussels – July 19, 2004 – Commissioner for Transport and Energy, Loyola de Palacio announced last
week that the European Commission intends to give the go-ahead for the Italian Government to provide
Alitalia with a Euro 400 million bail out loan. This loan would be granted on top of several rounds of state
support to Alitalia including the Euro 1.4 billion in “one time, last time†aid given in 1997 and another Euro
1.4 billion in a recapitalisation backed mostly by the Italian government in 2002.
Wolfgang Kurth, President of ELFAA and CEO of German low fares airline Hapag-Lloyd Express
commented: “This latest news coming from the EC on the Alitalia situation is completely
incomprehensible. Although the Commission previously stated that they would not agree to any further
support for Alitalia, they are about to agree to yet another bail out for this ailing national carrier. Our
members currently offer some 169 routes to and from Italy and are directly affected by the fact that
Alitalia is being artificially kept alive. Their plans for expansion are being hampered because Alitalia
offers economically unsustainable services, often priced below costs. Competition in Italy has been
seriously distorted due to repeated injections of state aid.â€
Alitalia has been loss making for eleven out of the last twelve years. Despite the massive amounts of
state aid, they have utterly failed to restructure and become competitive. Instead, Alitalia keeps flying at
the expense of the Italian taxpayers and to the detriment of competition.
Kurth commented further: “The European Commission is blatantly allowing state governments to protect
their national airlines while non-state owned airlines are expected to compete in a seriously distorted
market. The Commission’s double standards are also evident in proposed ‘state aid guidelines’ that will
apply to what state owned regional airports can and cannot offer to airlines willing to bring huge
passenger numbers and the resulting commercial benefits to those airports. The Commission appears
reluctant to date to include the regional airports, the low fares airlines and the regions in the formal
consultation process on these guidelines, which will prevent state owned regional airports from
competing with their private counterparts and will seriously impede the growth of low fares airlines at
regional airports. This will only benefit the ailing national airlines by protecting them from strong
competition of airlines operating out of low cost regional airports.â€
ELFAA therefore calls on all of the remaining 24 Commissioners to oppose Commissioner de Palacio’s
recommendation to approve this further state aid to Alitalia. As ELFAA warned in an earlier letter sent to
Commissioner De Palacio in June, any form of aid to Alitalia will be subject to legal challenge before the
European Courts.
NOTE TO THE EDITORS:
ELFAA Members include: Air Berlin, BasiqAir, Transavia, Flybe, Sky Europe, Ryanair, Sverige Flyg,
Volareweb, Sterling, Hapag-Lloyd Express and WIZZ Air, who together carry more than 50 million
passengers per year.Current Press office : Phone +49 511 5900 500
Fax +49 511 5900 509
Cheers,
White Cap
