Alitalia's sale adviser said on Thursday it was too early to say how many jobs the ailing carrier will be forced to shed but warned that salvaging the airline would be no easy task.
"Alitalia is in a very difficult situation and everything needs to be done to find a solution," Intesa Sanpaolo Chief Executive Corrado Passera told reporters after meeting EU officials in Brussels to discuss the carrier's fate.
His bank has been appointed by Italy's new government to draw up a fresh plan to salvage the carrier after a planned sale to Air France-KLM fell apart earlier this year and an auction to sell the airline collapsed last year.
Italian media have speculated that the airline would have to cut 4,000 to 7,000 jobs out of its nearly 19,000-strong workforce as part of the plan being drawn up by Intesa, but Passera called such talk "premature".
"All the figures that have come out on job cuts are premature," he said.
Intesa is expected to unveil its rescue plan by early August for the state-controlled airline, which lost EUR495 million euros (USD$786.1 million) last year and is being kept alive by a EUR300 million emergency loan from the Italian government.
The loan is being investigated by the European Commission to determine whether it breaks rules on state aid. EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani, a former Italian lawmaker close to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, asked Passera to ensure that the plan to relaunch the airline be fully in line with EU rules when the two met on Thursday, a statement from the commissioner's office said.
Home 
