Hundreds of Meridiana staff rally

(ANSA) - Olbia, October 27 - Hundreds of of employees of privately owned Sardinian carrier Meridiana rallied Monday the labor ministry in Rome ahead of a meeting between government, management and unions over the company's plan to lay off 1,366 people.
    Sources close to the company told ANSA that Meridiana was set to begin laying people off immediately. Also on Monday, the troubled airline began service on a new Bologna-Naples route, with two flights a day Monday through Friday. The airline operating domestic, European and intercontinental flights is owned by British business magnate Aga Khan Prince Karim al-Hussayni, who founded it in 1963 to promote tourism to Sardinia.
    Meridiana pilots have berated the company's plan to lay off 1,634 employees after what they said has been "a decade of deranged executive decisions" and mismanagement by CEO Roberto Scaramella, who "gave himself a 700,000-euro salary while the company lost an estimated 200 million euros in 2014".