Alitalia will have to shut down for hours when it officially goes through the process to become a new, private airline, the head of the national civil aviation authority (ENAC), Vito Riggio, said on Friday.
The transition from the 'old' to 'new' Alitalia is set to take place during the night between January 12 and 13 and ''many hours'' will be needed to certify the aircraft, he explained.
Because of the time needed to carry out the certification process, ''some Alitalia flights will suffer delays or cancellations and passengers will need to be informed,'' Riggio said.
The ENAC chief said it was impossible for certain to say how long the certification process would take.
Sources at Alitalia said that a total of 93 aircraft had to be certified and that this could take between seven to eight hours.
Part of the problem, Riggio explained, was that the certification requests were made in the name of Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI), the private Italian investor group created to acquire Alitalia's flight operations, which last week formally changed its name to Alitalia, having also bought the airline's name and brand.
Before it officially takes off, the 'new' Alitalia is expected to formally announce the name of its foreign partner, which the press reports will be Air France-KLM.
However, sources at Alitalia on Friday said that the new airline's chairman, Piaggio boss Roberto Colaninno, will meet next week with Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chairman of the German carrier Lufthansa.
