Truemors
Berlusconi unable to save Alitalia from bancruptcy. The old joke about ALITALIA means "Always Late In Takeoff Always Late In Arriving" changes to ground the Italians being the latest victim of the sub-prime credit crisis. El cavaliere Beluscino without luck.
Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is under pressure to save national airline Alitalia SpA from bankruptcy after an Italian investor group he backed withdrew its bid yesterday.
With a total of 19,000 jobs at Alitalia and thousands of others at Italy's main airports hanging in the balance, Berlusconi, 71, is facing the biggest challenge of his four- month-old government. The prime minister's popularity rose to 60 percent, its highest since the April election, in an IPR Marketing poll published this week, when it seemed the rescue plan would succeed.
Alitalia risks becoming the first major European flagship airline to collapse since Swissair Group and Belgium's Sabena in 2001. The company, which has been losing $3 million a day and may run out of funds by the end of this month, filed for insolvency on Aug. 29 to allow the state-backed rescue to begin.
``We may be on the edge of the abyss,'' Berlusconi said yesterday after news that the investor group, known as CAI, had withdrawn its bid for Alitalia after only three of nine unions accepted the terms of the contract they were offered.
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