Integration of Wind Jet operations with Alitalia receives board approval

Alitalia took over the passenger transport activity from Wind Jet as per an agreement reached on 13-Apr-2012 following approval from the carrier's board, as reported by local media sources including AGI, World Aeronautical Press Agency, Avionews and Il Messaggero. With the transaction, previously announced in Jan-2012, Alitalia Group "aims at gathering the specific know-how developed by Wind Jet in the low-cost flights sector, thus completing and enriching its range of products and competences. This will allow Alitalia to further diversify its offer, similarly to what has been done with the Air One project, namely to have a wider range of Italian, quality low-cost flights. The operation - which is consistent with the ones recently announced by other European airlines and aims at strengthening our activity in the low cost flight segment - is subject to the success of a series of regulation and market conditions set out in the contract," the carrier said. WindJet reportedly has debts of around EUR100 million. A similar agreement with Blue Panorama has not been approved.