Air Italy said Wednesday that
its services will continue until April 16 despite Italy's
second-biggest airline being put into liquidation last week.
The services will be operated by rented aircraft and
contracted crews rather than with Air Italy planes and
employees.
Air Italy's services include links between Olbia and Rome and
Milan, which are important connections between Sardinia and
mainland Italy.
These services will continue to be offered at discounted
prices for residents of Sardinia.
The procedure to make the airline's 1,450 employees redundant
has been launched, Air Italy's liquidators told managers on
Friday.
They also said that "all possible sales of company branches
that include the possible maintenance of all or some of the jobs
will be taken into consideration".
Air Italy's stakeholders, Alisarda and Qatar Airways, said
via the AQA Holding company that they had decided to put the
airline into liquidation and stop operating due to persistent
conditions of difficulty on the market.
Air Italy is estimated to have made a loss of 230 million
euros in 2019.
The government has said it is opposed to the liquidation and
has called on the liquidators to find "alternative paths".
Transport Minister Paola De Micheli told the Lower House on
Wednesday that she was holding talks with Qatari officials about
the situation.
"Today I met Qatar's ambassador to Italy, who reiterated the
strategic nature of the relations between the two countries and
expressed willingness to identify every possible shared
solution", she said.
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