Italian executives will meet with Delta managers in Atlanta to discuss a potential merger with Alitalia, La Stampa reported, citing an unidentified official familiar with the Ferrovie plan. The Italian government may favor a deal for Alitalia with Delta over Lufthansa because it would be easier to implement and wouldn’t require job cuts, the newspaper cited the official as saying. Alitalia’s partnership with Delta would involve mainly long-haul flights to the US, while a deal with Lufthansa could focus on the Italian market, according to Stampa. The national railroad operator Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane has been given the task of conducting the negotiations and some of its executives will be making the trip to Atlanta next week, according to Stampa. Ferrovie executives need to submit to the Italian government an industrial plan for Alitalia, including a deal with another carrier, by the end of February, the daily said. EasyJet has a less attractive proposal that includes buying part of Alitalia’s fleet and using a small number of its personnel, according to Stampa.<br/>
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Delta's long-running quest to begin Airbus A220 flights may face another hurdle: the ongoing shutdown of the US federal government. The Atlanta-based carrier – the first US airline to acquire the A220 – has planned to place the type into revenue service on 31 January with flights from New York LaGuardia airport to Boston and Dallas-Fort Worth. But the US budgetary standoff – which is about to enter a third week – has shuttered large swaths of the US government. The FAA already certified the A220 itself (those approvals came in 2016), but carriers cannot operate new aircraft types until the agency concludes an operational review and adds those types to airlines' operating certificates, insiders note. FAA units tasked with that work, however, are not currently on the job, they say. The process can be lengthy even when the government is open, and sometimes wraps up only shortly before an aircraft is scheduled enter service, says John Goglia, a former NTSB member who now helps aircraft operators navigate the process of placing new aircraft types into service. Delta insists the government shutdown will not affect its schedules. "Delta continues to monitor the situation and will work with the FAA to ensure that the A220 is fully certified when it enters our fleet," Delta tells FlightGlobal. "No customer disruption or impact to schedules are expected."<br/>