The Italian government will extend to December the maturity of a E400m bridge loan it granted Alitalia amid delays in launching a new state-owned carrier to replace the bankrupt airline, a draft decree seen by Reuters showed. Rome will also create a fund worth E100m to reimburse passengers for tickets and vouchers issued by Alitalia during the pandemic and not used before the new state-owned carrier starts operations, according to the draft. The governing coalition last year set up a plan for a new carrier called Italia Trasporto Aereo, which was supposed to start operating in early April in place of Alitalia. However lengthy negotiations with the European Commission have delayed the launch by several months, likely until after the busy summer period, allowing rival carriers including Ryanair and Wizz Air to snap up domestic routes in Italy. The decree, which is expected to be approved in a cabinet meeting later on Wednesday, also says that administrators running Alitalia will start private negotiations to sell the airline’s assets to ITA. <br/>
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The Indonesian airline Garuda started administering free coronavirus vaccinations to holidaymakers and travellers on Wednesday, part of efforts to reduce the impact of the virus in one of Asia’s worst-affected countries. About 20 passengers took advantage of the free shots on the opening day of the programme on Wednesday at Soekarno-Hatta International airport, which has the capacity to vaccinate 200 domestic travellers per day. “This vaccine gives me confidence but still, we have to obey health protocol because we’re not 100% immune. But at least it gives a sense of calm,” said Cecep Taufiqurohman, 32, after receiving his vaccine. Garuda is offering the Sinovac vaccine to help expedite a national immunisation programme that had a slow takeoff, with only 13m of the country’s more than 270m people fully vaccinated since January. Indonesia has reported record new infections in two of the past three days, and authorities are considering emergency restrictions to arrest the spread.<br/>