The Italian government does not want to sell Ita Airways to the shipping company MSC and Lufthansa, but to the Certares/Delta/Air France-KLM consortium. The Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday that exclusive negotiations will now begin.

In recent months, MSC and Lufthansa have been treated as desired buyers by various media, but also by some Italian trade unions. The management of Ita Airways made no secret of the fact that they would like to be "swallowed" by Lufthansa. However, the offer was not approved by the Italian Treasury.

For Delta and Air France-KLM, it's about much more than "just" the takeover of Alitalia's successor. It's about the potential loss of a key Skyteam member to rival Star Alliance. This would almost completely lose the Italian market, because there is no alternative partner for connections or feeders. This was also well known in Frankfurt am Main, which is why they bid as a junior partner of the shipping company MSC.

For the Italian government, however, the decisive factor may have been that the consortium that was awarded the contract is satisfied with fewer shares and wants to give the government a very extensive say. That's exactly what the politicians seem to like, because it's an open secret that a significant part of Alitalia's misery is also due to political interference.

The Ministry of Finance also explained that the offer from Certares and its partners corresponds significantly better to the requirements that were set in the context of the tender. You now enter into exclusive negotiations and at the end of these, ideally, a purchase contract is concluded. However, the government emphasizes that it will only be signed if the state is satisfied with all the details.

The majority sale of Ita Airways is by no means completely done. New elections will take place at the end of September 2022 and there are political forces who want to stop the sale of Ita Airways. If the deal is not sealed beforehand, it is quite conceivable that the privatization could be stopped, depending on which government gets the push.