Italy. Land of wine and olives. Of Lazio and Vespa motorcycles. Of strikes. Strikes at Fiat. Strikes at Alitalia – saved by a whisker from bankruptcy in May.
When this shattered correspondent, up at 4am to catch a flight on the Italian national airline that never left London, pointedly asked turnaround specialist Corrado Passera by telephone to take on Alitalia, he declined. “Let’s always keep in mind the post office and Intesa have not been the hardest challenges. In my professional life, the restructuring of Olivetti and the refocusing of TLC [the creation of telecommunications company Omnitel] was. Alitalia might be even worse,” he stated, with not even a flicker of humour.