Alitalia walkout strands hundreds of passengers

Hundreds of Christmas air travellers found themselves stranded at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport on Tuesday, due to a second day of labour unrest affecting Alitalia.

Ground services workers at Rome’s main airport walked off the job on Monday in order to hold union talks dealing with their future employment, as a consortium of Italian businessmen prepares to relaunch the financially-troubled carrier early in 2009.

Nearly 100 flights were cancelled on Monday, and another 43 on Tuesday, according to reports in the Italian media.

“Alitalia stinks, I’m sorry,” said passenger Vince Mariotto, an American trying to return to Chicago, in comments to Reuters Television. “I never (will take another Alitalia) flight … not even if they give me a free ticket.”

Mirea Mitrofan, an Alitalia passenger who was trying to return to Bucharest, complained that the airline had done very little to provide comfort to passengers who had been stranded by the labour action.

“No water, no food. They put some of us last night in hotels, some people slept on the floor in the airport,” he said.

Earlier in the year, Alitalia, the Italian national airline, went bankrupt and its best assets were purchased by a consortium of Italian investors, known as CAI. The consortium is planning to merge the core airline business with a domestic competitor in the coming year.

Thanks to uk.reuters.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

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