Only an emergency plan which includes cost-cutting measures will keep Alitalia from losing its operating license, the head of Italy's civil aviation authority ENAC said on Tuesday.
Speaking on Italian television, ENAC Chairman Vito Riggio explained that ''there are European regulations that supersede national ones and they state clearly that airlines must have enough cash on hand to cover expenses for at least a year''.
He added that Alitalia was operating on a temporary license which was granted when it appeared that the airline was in the process of being sold.
However, now that the only existing offer has been withdrawn and no other has been advanced the conditions no longer existed to allow the temporary license to be confirmed, the ENAC chief said.
Riggio recalled that a six-month temporary license was granted in September because an offer presented by a group of private Italian investors appeared ''realistic and concrete''.
''Now that this plan no longer exists neither do the reasons for granting a temporary license. This unless the government-appointed minister comes up with an emergency plan to cut costs,'' the ENAC chief said.
Riggio and Alitalia's government-appointed administrator Augusto Fantozzi met on Monday and the ENAC chief gave Alitalia until Thursday to present a new plan.
The same day Fantozzi had issued a public invitation for bids for all or part of Alitalia's activities and gave September 30 as a deadline to present offers, after which the airline was subject to liquidation.
There was no real discrepancy between the ENAC deadline and the one set by Fantozzi, Riggio explained, because of the time needed for ENAC to examine any plan presented on Thursday.
Also on Monday the Italian investor consortium Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) formally withdrew its bid for Alitalia's flight operations because their business plan did not win the support of all trade unions.
CAI already announced last week that it would pull out.
In response to Fantozzi's call for bids, a Swiss firm operating flights in the Balkans and Eastern Europe said it was ready to acquire and/or lease 30 aircraft belonging to Alitalia.
Unions representing the majority of pilots and cabin staff, the same ones who had rejected CAI's plan, announced that they were ready to make an offer for the national carrier and as collateral would up their significant pensions fund.
Many observers believe Alitalia's invitation for bids was only a formality ahead of the airline being placed in liquidation.
