Italian Industry Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said Tuesday that negotiations with the European Commission over how to relaunch ailing carrier Alitalia were stalled and the government needed a new plan to keep it in business. Brussels and Rome have been in talks since the beginning of this year over Italy’s plan to restructure the airline through the launch of a new, state-owned company called ITA. “Alitalia’s situation was assessed in the light of the stalled talks with the European Commission,” Giorgetti said after meeting Alitalia’s special commissioners. “We therefore believe need a new plan of action is necessary... to allow the company to keep operating,” Giorgetti added, without saying what this plan might be. Flights to and from Italy have dwindled due to COVID-19, but Rome is hoping for a pick-up in time for the summer tourist season so that ITA can get off to a solid start. To keep the prospect alive and continue to pay Alitalia staff, the government could push on with the sale of its aircraft and other assets to ITA while it tries to break the stalemate with Brussels.<br/>
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Korean Air believes the strong performance in its cargo business will slow the second half of 2021, with passenger flights resuming and bellyhold capacity re-entering the market. “Our cargo sector expects to perform strongly in the first half of the year due to a continued shortage of passenger flight belly capacity, recovery in trade and shipping logistics problems,” says Korean Air president Woo Keehong in a company briefing. “However, the cargo performance will be slowed down in the second half as the capacity issues are expected to be alleviated with other airlines expanding their capacities and passenger flights starting to resume.” In a year during which most airlines suffered massive operating losses, Korean was a rarity in that it was able to report an operating profit of W238b ($213m) on the back of its strong cargo business. The strong cargo result came about despite revenues diving 40% year on year to W7.4t. Woo adds that the airline is hopeful that the industry can “start to recover substantially from 2022” from the coronavirus pandemic, but stresses that this is “very difficult to predict.” Woo expects domestic traffic to recover in countries with effective rollouts of Covid-19 vaccines, but warns that international markets may take “considerable time” to reopen given the plethora of travel restrictions in place.<br/>
A court in Vietnam handed a two-year suspended jail term to a Vietnam Airlines flight attendant on Tuesday after finding him guilty of breaking COVID-19 quarantine rules and spreading the virus to others, police said. Duong Tan Hau, 29, was convicted of “spreading dangerous infectious diseases” at the one-day trial at the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said. Vietnam has been praised for its efforts to contain the virus through mass testing and tracing and strict centralised quarantining. It has recorded fewer than 2,600 COVID-19 infections and only 35 deaths due to the disease. Hau breached the country’s 14-day quarantine regulations and met 46 other people following his flight from Japan in November, according to the indictment posted on a police ministry website.<br/>