Alitalia has $263m in cash as nationalisation looms

Alitalia had E232m in its coffers on May 31, Italian industry minister Stefano Patuanelli said on Tuesday, as the government prepares to take over an airline that has burned through cash in the COVID-19 pandemic. The nationalisation of the loss-making business comes after 11 troubled years of private management and three failed restructuring attempts. The government injected E400m into Alitalia at the beginning of this year, after granting a bridge loan of E900m in 2017, which was not paid back. “As of May 31 the company had 232 million euros in liquidity ... revenue between January and May amounted to 505 million,” Patuanelli told a parliamentary hearing. In the same period last year, the carrier recorded E1.1b in revenues. Transport Minister Paola De Micheli, also addressing parliament on the nationalisation plan, said the government would invest in planes, “particularly for long-haul” flights. Rome said last month, as it eased a three-month coronavirus lockdown, that it would inject at least 3 billion euros of fresh capital into Alitalia to relaunch it as a new public company. The government planned to nationalise the carrier in early June, but the project has not taken shape yet and the ministers did not give a time frame on Tuesday.<br/>