Lufthansa only interested in 'restructured' Alitalia: CEO

Lufthansa is only interested in investing in struggling Italian airline Alitalia, which is running out of cash and racing to find new funds, once it has been restructured, its chief executive said on Thursday. “The technical restructuring of taking elements out, people out needs to be done by the current ownership before we can see ourselves getting involved here,” Carsten Spohr told analysts after Lufthansa reported Q3 results. “We are interested to look at a restructured new Alitalia, if it makes sense to us and our shareholders, our staff and our customers due to the importance of the Italian market.” On Wednesday, Alitalia’s administrators said they had no preferred option between Delta and Lufthansa, the two groups talking with rail operator Ferrovie dello Stato about a rescue for the Italian carrier. Ferrovie, which is leading a state-orchestrated effort to rescue Alitalia, will have to choose between the two foreign carriers in the next weeks as the financial performance of Alitalia was deteriorating, the administrators said.<br/>