Augusto Fantozzi said he expects to sign a contract with Alis, the owner of Cargoitalia, another private Italian allcargo carrier, within a week which will see Alis pay nearly US$18 million for the former Alitalia Cargo, but this does not include planes or take off and landing slots, Fantozzi said.
Alitalia Cargo’s five MD-11 freighters were grounded in January after CAI, the investor group that paid US$1.3 billion for a slimmed down Alitalia, declined to buy the loss-making freight unit of the former state-controlled carrier. Alitalia Cargo lost US$20 million in 2007.
Foreign carriers have quickly taken advantage of Alitalia Cargo’s demise and the termination of its freighter flights to North Asia, India and the US, to start services and increase frequencies in Europe’s second largest air freight market after Germany.
Lufthansa Cargo began a twice weekly freighter service between Milan Malpensa and New York and Chicago in February and its passenger counterpart is also flying freight in the passenger bellies of its recently established Italian unit, Lufthansa Italia. Cargolux, the Luxembourg-based all-cargo carrier, plans to launch freighter services from the airport in April.
Air France-KLM, Europe’s biggest airline, paid CAI about US$420 million for a 25 per cent stake in the new Alitalia but it has not indicated any ambitions for the resurrected Alitalia to move into the cargo realm.