Well, I may get to New York this Christmas after all. Last night, after most Italian newspapers had gone to bed (and me, too), ANPAC, the aggressive Italian pilots union, and a smaller pilots union as well, finally reached an agreement with CAI, the new private Italian airline company, making the rescue plan for Italy's former national airline, ALMOST a done deed.

        What's missing? The signatures of just a couple of smaller unions of flight attendants.  But at this point it's hard to see them refusing to sign on Monday when they will be meeting with the new company's management and government ministers. And we will all draw a sigh of relief, as will the close to 20,000 Alitalia employees who would have been out of work. Of course the plan does envisage a few thousand layoffs, but there is a commitment by management to rehire at least some of them when circumstances permit.

        In the meantime, it is still incertain which foreign ailine will become a partner for Alitalia, so there is bound to be a lot more heated discussion. And there are also indications that the European Union has doubts about some aspects of the agreement. But hopefully these will be overcome as well.

      All of which means that prime minister Silvio Berlusconi will be able to say that he kept last spring's election campaign promise  - when he helped to scuttle the Air France takeover offer -  to keep Alitalia Italian. Wanna bet? I would not be surprised if five years from now Alitalia is foreign owned, because it is a not very well-kept secret that most of the 16 investors in CAI (some of whom no doubt have won favors from Berlusconi for joining the consortium) have no real interest in owing or running an airline and simply want to make money when they sell their stakes. But most probably by then, Mr. B. will be out of the picture.

        The only missing piece of the puzzle is that of the position of the smaller, independent unions that represent the hard-line pilots and the flight attendants. If it falls into place, all will be well (and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who last spring was responsible together with the unions for scuttling a possible takeover by Air France, will save face). If not these people will have to bear responsibility for putting close to 20,000 employees out of work.

        In the meantime, both Air France and Lufthansa have both said they are interested in buying a minority stake in the new airline, but if this happens it will not be immediate.