ENAC renews Alitalia’s flight licence

Rome - A sigh of relief for Alitalia. ENAC has renewed the permanent flight licence, promoting the good state of health of the company, which has been under extraordinary administration (insolvency procedure) for three months. The decision has been expected for several days and now signals a new step towards normality.

Meanwhile, expressions of interest will continue to come in, with some candidates that have come forward before: the suitors still have about one month to request access to the data room, while binding offers are expected in early October.

ENAC’s decision was anticipated several days ago by President Vito Riggio, who said in a Senate hearing that the organisation was ready to renew the licence “because, according to its cash data, the company not only has not touched the 600 million it was loaned, and actually has more (precisely 614 million) since it is filling its aeroplanes at the moment.”

The official announcement came yesterday: ENAC announced that it had provided for the renewal of the licences to exercise aerial transportation both for Alitalia SAI and for the regional carrier Alitalia Cityliner. As part of the process, the provisional licences which were issued at the start of extraordinary administration have been revoked. They would have expired in November.

According to what we have learned, ENAC’s decision was made on the basis of a series of data on the company’s progress: in addition to the cash situation, the number of tickets purchased in advance, which has recovered and exceeded its low point at the initial phase; the revenue situation (about +2/3% in July, according to what the commissioners reported to the unions); the actions to control costs (from the wage guarantee fund, to the departure of twenty managers, to the renegotiation of the hedging contracts for fuel and leasing).