Alitalia has gone bankrupt and staff are protesting for better pay and unemployment benefits.
The protest, which took place on Wednesday morning, saw dozens of former AliItalia flight attendants strip off their uniforms in central Rome.
The airline has had financial problems for a long time now, and it’s final flight took place on October the 14th. A new airline company, ITA, is now flying some of Alitalia’s old jets.
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According to ABC, ITS bought the Alitalia brand, “but it is taking on fewer than 3,000 of Alitalia’s 10,000 employees.”
ABC reports: “Union officials say those who will work for ITA are being hired at significantly lower pay scales. Some 50 former flight attendants stood in rows in a square atop Rome’s Capitoline Hill, lowered their company shoulder bags to the cobblestone pavement, then slowly and in synch, removed their overcoats, then uniform jackets, then skirts, then stepped out of their high-heeled shoes.”
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“They remained barefoot, wearing only a slip, in silence for a few minutes. Then they carefully gathered up their garments and shoes and together shouted, ‘We are Alitalia!’ Union leaders have been pressing for the government to extend unemployment benefits for as long as five years.”
Traveller reports that during a conference launching the airline, ITA President Alfredo Altavilla Altavilla said the slimmed down nature of ITA (less destinations, fleet and workforce) will enable it to compete with low-cost airlines while offering better service, connections and value.
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“ITA Airways is being born right-sized, in the optimal dimensions both in terms of the size of its fleet and its destinations,” he said. “We don’t carry with us the negative inheritance of being too big that conflict with the economic reality.”
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This comes in a climate where, even among airlines that are surviving economically, COVID-19 pressures have led to incidents of disgruntled staff (and passengers) leading to a viscious cycle of mutual loathing (at worst) and frustration in many situations, particularly in the USA.
In fact, over in the USA, flight attendants have said they are sick of babysitting passengers and are being trained in self defence to be able to cope with the growing spate of ‘unruly behaviour.’
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