KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KL, Amsterdam Schiphol) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Pieter Elbers says talks between Air France-KLM and Alitalia (AZA, Rome Fiumicino) over the proposed extension of their joint-venture are still ongoing.
Speaking to Dutch aviation portal, Up In The Sky, Elbers said the venture, which was due to expire as of January 13, 2017, had now been extended to March 25.
"Though Alitalia has cancelled the agreement, we are still talking to them about possible solutions," he said. "If no solution is found, one of the consequences could indeed be that we lose slots at Milan Linate. Those slots are part of the agreement."
Alitalia's intention to withdraw from the partnership, signed in January 2009, has been known for some time. In May 2015, previous CEO Silvano Cassano terminated the agreement stating that it had been negotiated to the Franco-Dutch carrier's advantage at Alitalia's expense.
"They were negotiated when Alitalia was in a very different position, with the result that the agreements in their current forms favour the other party," he said. "Our business needs agreements which deliver equitable value to each party."
According to Italy's Il Sole24Ore newspaper, with Etihad Airways (EY, Abu Dhabi International) as a shareholder, Alitalia plans to take back its the Linate slots, given to Air France-KLM as part of the deal, and to start independently operating its own long-haul flights, as opposed to providing feeder traffic to the Paris CDG and Amsterdam Schiphol hubs of its partner.
