Air France, but as Alitalia: the transalpine company is the real EU black hole

The long crisis of Air France started well before the pandemic …

Only in 2008if the call to arms from Silvio Berlusconi of the twenty brave captains of Italian entrepreneurship, the very solid Air France should have save the disastrous Alitalia. And now, after the terrible competition in the skies of low cost and internal on rails of the Tgv that they generated strong employment cuts (emblematic in 2015 the photo of the chief of staff Xavier Broseta – under – fleeing shirtless with only a tie around his neck to avoid being lynched) and the technical knockout from the pandemicin a black crisis, it seems never-ending, it just ended there Air France-Klm.

THE nearly two years of Covidthe most serious stop for the world aviation sector with the repeated grounding of planes and the cut to flights, brought, in order, as a dowry: in the first half of 2020 10.4 billion in loans (between direct loans from the French and Dutch state and 90% public guarantees), a capital increase of 4 billion (conversion of the public shareholder loan of three billion and a new injection of fresh money of one billion) in 2021 and now a new recapitalization of up to € 4 billion to repay state loans (the Paris and Amsterdam executives are the main shareholders of the carrier) obtained during the plague of Coronavirus.

The choice a disastrous new year follows from the point of view of accounts for the former Franco-Dutch giant of the skies: the financial statements closed again with a loss of 3.3 billion eurosalbeit halved compared to 7.1 billion in 2020on revenues up 29% on 2020 (the black year of lockdown) to 14.3 billion, but still very distant from the 27.2 billion in 2019that is, before the pandemic left the entire aviation sector stranded for months.

The recapitalization will include a capital increaseas well as an issue of quasi-equity instruments such as simple or perpetual convertible bonds and other measures, including an asset refinancing project in the amount of up to € 500 million. The French state, which holds the 28.6% of the capital, last April has converted to quasi-equity the three billion in loans and participated in the first capital increase of one billion euros.

The group did not provide details on the conditions or timing of the new recapitalization, but numbers and prospects did investors are flying off: the Air France-KLM stock also closed the seat on the stock exchange with a red of 7.6%.

“Air France-KLM wants to remain flexible on the structure of these transactions as well as on their sequence and on the amount of each instrument, according to market conditions”, explained the air carrier who added that he wanted to repay government aid “as soon as possible”whereas activity has improved in recent months, particularly after the reopening by the United States in November to travelers vaccinated against COVID-19.

(Continued: the monstre debt at 8.2 billion euros, 7,580 cuts by this year and the missing estimates for the current year due to uncertainty)