ALITALIA CHAIRMAN Renato Riverso has resigned, two years after being brought in to help turn around the troubled Italian flag carrier.
Riverso had arrived at the airline, together with chief executive Roberto Schisano, in February 1994, with a brief to push through badly needed cost cutting, at the loss-making airline. In a break from tradition, both men came from tough commercial backgrounds, heading up major US corporations in Europe.
Schisano was forced out in October amid accusations that he had signed a "secret" pact with the pilots' union in an attempt to end the bitter labour disputes crippling the carrier.
Riverso had then been asked to take over executive responsibilities, but these were handed over recently when state holding company IRI appointed Domenico Cempella as chief executive.
Cempella, an IRI trouble-shooter, has already set about forming his own management team. Two senior managers have been brought in from the Aeroporti di Roma, which Cempella ran following its privatisation last year. Giovanni Sebstiani, who was making a success of running Alitalia's small private rival AirOne, has also been named as operations director.
Source: Flight International
