ALITALIA: Ex-employees Flash-mob protest on Capitoline Hill in Rome

Alitalia ceased operations last week on 14 October after costing the Italian government a fortune for decades. ITA Airways is the replacement national carrier. ITA is slimmer, smaller and more streamlined, partly because of shedding a lot of Alitalia employees. That is not good for employee sentiment.

This is one hell of a classy protest. Pity, by all reports, their service was not always up to this standard in real life.

ITA Airways has employed former Alitalia flight attendants, but nowhere near all:

• ITA has taken only 3,000 of 10,000 former Alitalia employees
• ITA Airways salaries and conditions are less than those at Alitalia
• The union wants unemployment benefits be paid to Alitalia employees for up to five years

While to be remotely successful, the airline needed to sort out efficiencies, and that included the number, pay and conditions of employees, from an ex-staff members point of view, why should they suffer from the inadequacies of management and government to be able to run an efficient airline?

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

While the airline needed to make a break from its past, it’s unfortunate that so many ex-employees are so badly affected, paying for the incompetencies of their former management, and being punished for their union’s expertise in wage and conditions negotiation.

Stylish protest!

Gratuitous image of Rome below