Well, it could be that I won't get to New York for Christmas this year after all. I've got a Business Class frequent flyer ticket on Alitalia but the way this weekend's negotiations to save the failing airline (by replacing it with a smaller, refinanced one) are going, it may well be that as of next week the Italian flagship airline may be no more. Of course, the Italians are masters at pulling rabbits out of hats, but this time it's really going to be tough. The airline is running so low on money that, it is said, it shortly will be unable to buy sufficient fuel to keep its planes in the air.

        Alitalia has been mismanaged for years and in recent months has been losing more than a million euros a day. The airline unions have a long history, even in better times, of inflexibility, something that did not help the airline's bottom line. The fact is that a huge mistake was made last spring when the unions rejected a much better takeover offer by Air France-KLM. (For example, the Air France plan called for 2100 job cuts while CAI is talking about more than 5000).

        But for many, me included, much of the responsibility for that rejection must fall on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's shoulders. Then in the midst of a heated election campaign, he used the Alitalia question as a campaign issue, accusing the former government "of giving the airline away" and basically egging the unions on, even though many Alitalia employees demonstrated in favour of accepting that offer. It would have been far more statesman like to have urged a positive vote for the good of the country instead o waving the Italian flag and insisting Italy must have its own airline.