Britalian

Have you ever been on a plane making its way to or from the runway at a major airport, trundled past another plane and thought “Christ, I am glad I’m not travelling in that“?

If you have, chances are the plane was one of the dirty, ageing Alitalia fleet.

There was a time when it was an Aeroflot plane that sent both a chill down the spine and a flash of a smile across the face but now Italy’s flag carrier is the peasant of the skies and it really is time to let her die.

The Unions need to realise that you just cannot protect jobs when the company itself exists only on handouts that are paid by government in possible contravention of EU competition regulations.

In the same way that the British taxpayer is having to prop up the failing banks that have been so greedily mismanaged, so their Italian counterparts are lumbered with an airline whose management cannot make the drastic changes needed because Unions fea that they may mean job losses. Welcome to the real world, it’s a reality that everybody faces at the moment.

At least give her a chance of rebirth, this staggering from rescue plan to rescue plan is another spot on Italy’s global image.