Lufthansa said Thursday it had no intention of buying Alitalia, the Italian airline facing liquidation after workers rejected a business plan featuring redundancies and wage cuts aimed at turning it around. "We have a clear intention of not acquiring Alitalia," said Lufthansa's financial director, Ulrik Svensson. Lufthansa had been one of the options aired after Premier Paolo Gentiloni rejected the idea of nationalising the chronically loss-making carrier and the government said they would seek a 300-400-million-euro bridging loan, with the EU's permission, to keep the airline flying while it looks for possible new investors. The Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) railway group , for its part, dismissed speculation it could be in the picture and said it had "no interest" in rescuing
Alitalia and had not been "contacted by anyone".
There is no "plan B" for Alitalia after workers rejected the revised business plan, Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Carlo Messina said.
"We are a bank, a company that deals in credit and not in airplanes," he said.
The chief executive of Italy's biggest bank said, however, that "we are open to any and all solutions".
The government "is not willing to take part directly or indirectly in a capital hike" for the beleaguered airline, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said.
The government, he said, was prepared to put in funds only to keep flights going in the near future.
Any government intervention, Padoan stressed, would have to be within the framework of EU rules banning State aid to industry.
Padoan also said there must be the "utmost promptness" in selecting special commissioners to draw up a plan for a "conservative management of the insolvency".
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