O’Leary not dismissing deal with troubled Alitalia

Given that Alitalia's shareholders include a state body and a European flag carrier, some of the things for which Ryanair chief executive, Michael O'Leary, tends to reserve his sharpest criticisms, the troubled Italian carrier does not seem like a natural match for the Irish airline.

Nevertheless, O’Leary responded relatively positively when asked how his company would react to an offer to take part in Alitalia’s current efforts to raise €300 million, by saying that Ryanair would evaluate it.

Alitalia's biggest shareholder, Air France-KLM, has declined to participate, saying that the Italian airline's current restructuring proposals would have to go a good deal further before it would be interested.

The result is that the airline has been thrown back on other shareholders, including the Italian postal service, which got 15 per cent last year in return for €75 million. Alitalia has so far raised only two-thirds of the cash, and reports have said that without it, it will run out of fuel before next summer.

O’Leary didn’t really think that Alitalia and Ryanair would be a good fit. But he went on to say that the Italian airline, which is losing €700,000 a day, could be turned around. What it has suffered from, he said, is too much political meddling, workers who are reluctant to accept change, loss-making routes and too many expensively leased craft.

Ryanair this week launched services from Fiumicino, Rome’s major international airport. While it is unlikely to take a chunk of Alitalia, it has sought a meeting with the airline to examine opportunities for co-operating with it.

That is more likely to see the Irish airline feeding passengers into Alitalia-operated long-haul routes from bases such as Fiumicino, and less likely to involve Ryanair actually investing shareholders’ money in Alitalia. The Italian carrier has not so far responded.

Ryanair has been looking at opportunities in Italy, partly a result of its rival's troubles, recently pointing out that it has had approaches from Italian airports that are worried about the possible impact of the local flag-carrier's woes on their businesses.

So, if there is not going to be a tie-in with Alitalia, there could well be further announcements of new Italian routes from Ryanair shortly.