“The Board of Directors of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, once evaluated the confirmations of the act of interest received, chose Atlantia as partner to support Delta Air Lines and the Ministry of Economy and Finance for the Alitalia operation.” Hence, the Italian national railway company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) eventually announced it ended the procedure to finalize the consortium to take over Alitalia.

The take over should allow an injection of €1 billion in the airline which is under FS trusteeship since 2017. FS should keep 35% of the capital of the new Alitalia while the Italian Department of Treasury will possess 15% of it. On the private side, the new shareholders will be the motorway manager Atlantia which is a subsidiary of Benetton and should take over 35 to 40% of the Italian company’s capital and Delta Air Lines which is its Skyteam partner with 10 to 15%.

According to the Italian press, FS and Delta are developing a social plan concerning the cancellation of 740 jobs on a total of 12,500. Besides, the fleet’s number of aircraft should decrease from 117 to 102 by 2023.