British Airways mulling partnership with Alitalia: report

ROME: British Airways is interested in forming a partnership with a revived Alitalia but does not want a stake in the Italian flagship, a leading Italian daily reported Thursday.

"(Investor group) Italian Air Company's plan is satisfactory to us, it marks the start of a new era for Alitalia and, in this context, we are prepared to aim for a strategic commercial alliance," BA official Yannick Hoyles told the Corriere della Sera.

"We are not thinking about a financial investment or a minority stake," added Hoyles, BA's commercial representative for western Europe.

The Italian government has frequently mentioned BA as a possible stakeholder in the new Alitalia.

Under the plan to rescue the national flag carrier from bankruptcy, which on Monday won the backing of the airline's nine unions, a streamlined Alitalia is set to take off on November 1 with the support of a foreign airline.

Air France-KLM, which already holds a two per cent stake in Alitalia, indicated that it was considering raising that to between 10 and 20 per cent, while German rival Lufthansa reportedly wants as much as 49 per cent.

Air France-KLM chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta was in Rome on Wednesday to confirm the Franco-Dutch airline's interest in the company, while Lufthansa's Wolfgang Mayrhuber was in the Italian capital last week. ROME: British Airways is interested in forming a partnership with a revived Alitalia but does not want a stake in the Italian flagship, a leading Italian daily reported Thursday.

"(Investor group) Italian Air Company's plan is satisfactory to us, it marks the start of a new era for Alitalia and, in this context, we are prepared to aim for a strategic commercial alliance," BA official Yannick Hoyles told the Corriere della Sera.

"We are not thinking about a financial investment or a minority stake," added Hoyles, BA's commercial representative for western Europe.

The Italian government has frequently mentioned BA as a possible stakeholder in the new Alitalia.

Under the plan to rescue the national flag carrier from bankruptcy, which on Monday won the backing of the airline's nine unions, a streamlined Alitalia is set to take off on November 1 with the support of a foreign airline.

Air France-KLM, which already holds a two per cent stake in Alitalia, indicated that it was considering raising that to between 10 and 20 per cent, while German rival Lufthansa reportedly wants as much as 49 per cent.

Air France-KLM chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta was in Rome on Wednesday to confirm the Franco-Dutch airline's interest in the company, while Lufthansa's Wolfgang Mayrhuber was in the Italian capital last week.