'New' state-owned Alitalia will be launched in June, says minister.

(ANSA) - Italy's Minister for Economic Development, Stefano Patuanelli, stated this Thursday (23), in a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies, that the new Alitalia will be, "initially", fully controlled by the State.

The company has been under government intervention for almost three years due to a liquidity crisis, but its sale process fell through at the end of last year.

In March, amid the spread of the novel coronavirus, which drastically reduced revenues in the civil aviation sector, the government issued a decree paving the way for the renationalization of Alitalia, through the creation of a "new company wholly controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance".

"The new Alitalia will initially be publicly owned, but I believe that the possibility of maintaining the company entirely under public control can be analyzed at a later stage," said Patuanelli, who belongs to the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) party.

According to the minister, the new Alitalia should be operational in the "first weeks of June," with a fleet of over 90 aircraft - currently there are 113, of which only nine are owned by the airline.

Patuanelli also promised to guarantee as many jobs as possible, but said it was "very difficult to talk about zero layoffs."

Formerly the national flag carrier, Alitalia is now owned by the holding company Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI), with 51% of the shares, and the Arab group Etihad Airways, with 49%, but its administration has been in the hands of the government for almost three years due to a liquidity crisis that left it on the verge of bankruptcy.

Alitalia, which remains afloat thanks to public loans totaling 1,3 billion euros, employs more than 11 people and is considered strategic by the government, which has used its planes to repatriate citizens stranded abroad by the coronavirus pandemic.