Silvano Cassano has quit as CEO of Alitalia, President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo announced on Friday in a message to employees of the airline. ANSA sources said the resignation was down to personal reasons and not linked to the company's financial performance, which is in line with plans. A statement said that Montezemolo has been given the authority "to exercise the powers until the appointment of a new CEO" by the board of directors.
After many difficult years, Alitalia is trying to transform itself into a profit-making airline after Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad injected new capital and took a 49% stake of the former flag carrier.
"The company will announce a new CEO in due course. In the interim, Mr Cassano's daily responsibilities will be split between Alitalia's Chief Operations Officer, Giancarlo Schisano and Chief Financial Officer, Duncan Naysmith, with both reporting directly to me until the new CEO is appointed", Montezemolo said.
Cassano quit because of poor results and not for personal reasons, the right-wing UGL union said Friday. "Cassano's resignation was due to the disappointing results he achieved," said Fabio Ceccalupo of UGL's air transport section.
Also on Friday, Italy's biggest and most leftwing trade union CGIL said it is "urgent" to find out why Cassano quit. "The news comes totally unexpected to us and we don't know the reasons," said the head of GCIL's air transport section, Nino Cortorillo, after Cassano stepped down citing personal reasons. "It's urgent to find out, a year after Etihad came in, if the causes of this resignation are due to a reshuffle at the top or they can be linked to the results of the (relaunch) plan and the problems that have emerged at Fiumicino", Cortorillo said. Fiumicino has been beset by problems this summer with a major fire causing a closure after it happened and also weeks afterwards when high levels of toxic air pollutants were found.
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