PHOTOS: Iberia Express launches Zadar service

GLOBAL AVIATION NEWS

Italy to sell ITA in June

Italy's government aims to sell state-owned ITA Airways, the successor to Alitalia, by the end of June after setting a deadline for binding offers of May 23, Economy Minister Daniele Franco said. Three prospective bidders for ITA Airways have had access to its finance data room, Franco said addressing parliament over the issue. They are shipping group MSC alongside Germany's Lufthansa, the U.S. Certares fund in cooperation with Delta and Air France, and investor Indigo Partners, Franco added. Under a government decree, Rome plans to privatise ITA through a direct sale while retaining a minority, non-controlling stake in a first stage. MSC in January requested an exclusivity period of 90 days to iron out details of an acquisition, but Rome opted for a market-based procedure aimed at keeping the door open to other potential suitors. "The outcome of the negotiations is not a foregone conclusion. We will examine the three offers in a transparent way, there is no decision on our part at present", Franco said adding a key factor is that the buyer is at least 51% owned by a European player. Lufthansa is interested in taking a minority stake in ITA, leaving the majority to MSC, the airline said in remarks during its shareholders meeting. It added, however, that the review of ITA's financial data would be important to confirm this preliminary intention. If the deal does go through, Lufthansa aims to build a close commercial cooperation with ITA and expects synergies to make the investment profitable in the long term, the carrier said. Under an agreement with the European Union, Rome can inject up to 1.35 billion euros into the ITA by 2023. A privatisation deal would potentially reduce the financial support granted by the state, limiting the costs for Italian taxpayers.

PHOTOS: Iberia Express launches Zadar service

NEWS FLASH

Low cost carrier Iberia Express has inaugurated seasonal summer flights between Madrid and Zadar, which will be maintained twice per week until August 31. Zadar becomes the airline's first destination in Croatia, with its parent company Iberia maintaining operations to Zagreb, Dubrovnik and Split. To celebrate the first flight between the two cities, Zadar Airport welcomed the Iberia Express Airbus A320 aircraft with a traditional water cannon salute.

Meanwhile, Zadar Airport registered its busiest June on record by handling 123.753 passengers through its doors, representing an increase of 43.6%. The growth was primarily fuelled by Ryanair, which introduced eight new seasonal services from Zadar this summer - Cologne, Eindhoven, Krakow, Hamburg, Bergamo, Nuremberg, Poznan and Prague. It has resulted in overall growth in the airline's operations from Zadar by 50% with over forty weekly flights maintained from the Croatian city. During the first half of the year, the airport handled 295.316 travellers, up 38%. It added an extra 81.376 passengers on 2018.

Comments

Anonymous12:01
Bravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDelete
Replies
Anonymous16:43
Does anyone knows what was load factor on this flight?
ReplyDelete
Replies
Anonymous17:19
By narrowing their focus onto Croatia only , their competitors have every route outside of Croatia for themselves ...
ReplyDelete
Replies
Wijn en Olijfolie13:42
nice
ReplyDelete
Replies

Post a Comment

EX-YU Aviation News does not tolerate insults, excessive swearing, racist, homophobic or any other chauvinist remarks or provocative posts with the intention of creating further arguments. A full list of comment guidelines can be found here. Thank you for your cooperation.