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Italy will try to complete the privatisation of bailed-out bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) and the sale of a 41% stake in national airline ITA Airways by the end of next year, the economy minister said on Monday. The issues of MPS and ITA, Alitalia’s loss-making successor, have long dragged on in Italian politics, with successive governments failing to sell shares in the two companies despite several attempts. After a failed bid to sell MPS to UniCredit in 2021, Italy agreed with the European Commission new privatisation terms that were never fully disclosed. Under the deal struck at the time of MPS’s E5.4b bailout in 2017, Rome is bound to eventually sell its 64% stake. “Yes,” Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti replied when asked, at a press conference after presenting Italy’s 2024 budget, whether MPS could return to private hands by the end of next year. Italy has also been in talks with European Union competition authorities to secure informal backing to a deal to sell a 41% stake in ITA to Germany’s Lufthansa. Giorgetti said he hoped to go ahead with the formal notification of the deal to Brussels by the end of October, after the issue sparked tension between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the EU last month. Meloni said Brussels had been blocking the deal with Lufthansa, urging the Commission to explain the reason. Both ITA and MPS are part of a wider E20/21b sell-off plan announced by the Treasury to keep in check Italy’s debt pile, the second-largest in the euro zone as a proportion of gross domestic output.<br/>

Garuda Indonesia is seeking to wet-lease widebody aircraft for the 2024 Hajj season. The airline issued a procurement notice on October 11, 2023, inviting eligible parties to bid for the business. Procurement notice number EPROC-IBS/2023/10/SO/0293 seeks either B777, A330, or B747 aircraft on an ACMI/damp-lease basis (with cabin crew provided by Garuda Indonesia) between May 13 and July 21, 2024. The aircraft will fly roundtrip between Indonesia and Madinah and Jeddah. The notice states a preference for planes manufactured not before 2001 and the range to complete with sectors without any technical stops. Indonesia is home to an estimated 231m Muslims, or around 87% of the country's population, making it the world's biggest Muslim nation. During the Hajj pilgrimage season, multiple airlines, including majority state-owned Garuda Indonesia, do a brisk business flying pilgrims between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Ahead of the 2023 season, ch-aviation reported that Garuda would dedicate 14 aircraft to Hajj flights, including seven of their own and seven wet-leased planes. For the 2024 charters, Garuda specifies that potential participants must be the aircraft's owner and/or operator and hold an air operator's certificate. "Participants shall act on behalf of itself and shall not act as a broker or intermediary of any other party. Participants shall not involve any other intermediary in participating in this leasing tender," the notice stipulates.<br/>