“A Flying Pig”

Eric Reguly of the globeandmail.com writes a cutting and provocative piece on the situation at Alitalia. I have been looking for an excuse to write about the Alitalia story as it provides a bit of a reflection of US airline industry tendencies. Particularly when politics and labor stand in the way of economic forces that demand change. Fighting an industry’s evolution seems to ultimately result in the failure of the very entity the entrenched believe somehow will flourish in its status quo state.

Whatever date will decide Alitalia’s fate is nearing. Mr. Reguly writes: “Alitalia, with some 18,000 employees (far too many) and 174 aircraft (far too old and fuel inefficient), has been a flying pig for as long as anyone can remember. It was plastered with bandages when radical surgery was required. Between 1999 and 2005, it lost €2.6-billion. In 2002, it was kept alive only by the emergency injection of €1.4-billion from the government. The bleeding still continued. The airline lost €605-million in 2006 and another €364-million last year. The politically motivated strategy of flying from two hubs - Milan's white-elephant Malpensa airport and Rome's Fiumicino - unnecessarily deepened the losses. Alitalia is too small for a two-hub operation (to its credit, the airline was slowly downgrading Malpensa in favour of Fiumicino)”.

The US airline industry is fast approaching a date where something is going to have to give as well with high oil and an economy in recession on a collision course. Whether consolidation or liquidation, the next 12-18 months promises to be the most challenging period in the industry’s deregulated life cycle. The barriers to exit that have historically existed will be challenged. My guess is that they will not provide the same safety net that has been experienced in the past.

Today, Alitalia is Europe’s sixth largest carrier in terms of revenue. The Big 3 in Europe (Air France/KLM, Lufthansa/Swiss and British Airways) are beginning to dwarf numbers 4-6 in terms of size. It would certainly seem that for Alitalia, being part of the world’s largest airline group is its best case scenario. But when parochial interests get in the way, somehow it becomes an all or nothing game rather than to preserve as much of the legacy as possible.

The US airline industry seems poised to experience some similar scenarios. Maybe the best path for the US is consolidation through liquidation? A path of lesser resistance? Some will say to me in various ways: Swelbar, this will only happen when pigs fly. What we are seeing in Altialia is that pigs can’t stay airborne forever – even in Open Skies.

Pigs don’t fly and neither will an industry that refuses to adapt.