FIRST HALF FIGURES from Italy show only a marginally better performance for the country's beleaguered aerospace and aviation industries, with Alitalia and Finmeccanica making little inroad into their losses.
Alitalia's airline operations lost another L197 billion ($122 million) over the half. Although the loss is a marked improvement on the performance a year ago, the company had hoped to see losses trimmed more severely to around L100 billion. Debt has continued to climb above L3.5 trillion.
The airline, which saw muted sales growth of just under 4%, blames the poor result on the groundings and strikes which have followed its continuing battles with the pilots' union.
Despite the airline's losses, the group performance has had a L415 billion boost from the sale of its stake in Aeroporti di Roma.
Finmeccanica also turned in losses of for the first half, although again the defence and aerospace group showed an improvement, cutting the deficit to L118 million from L146 billion a year ago.
Sales were up by 13%, to above L6 trillion, following the consolidation of new businesses under the Finmeccanica umbrella. Streamlining is still under way at the group.
Source: Flight International