(Finance) – “At the moment what is important to us is to provide a service to Italian users that is suited to their needs and has affordable prices. The comparison with the airline sector is underway and I am convinced that we will be able to develop a policy industrial that allows the country to seize new opportunities. On the rules against high flight prices “we have discussed with all the companies, obviously also with Ryanair, we will have a collective table next Thursday”. This is what the Minister of Business and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, at Mimit after Ryanair cut flights. “Many of the companies that have presented themselves in recent days have announced plans to increase their flights in our country. I would also say all the companies, without exception – added Urso –. This is because ‘Italy is the country where growth air traffic more in Europe and also the country where the greatest profits are made”.
As for the Ryanar’s decision which decided to respond to the decree approved by the Council of Ministers last 7 August which provides for a cap on fares for connections to the islands by announcing the cutting of flights on around ten routes in Sardinia. Urso invited the low cost airline to discuss European headquarters. “I look at concrete facts, in a constructive and positive spirit as always, and I hope – stated the Minister – that this important undertaking will also be able to have a positive perception at European level and the invitation to go and discuss it with European citizens “.
“We hope that Minister Urso at the collective table with the air transport players announced for next Thursday will also involve the trade unions because it would truly be a serious mistake not to consider the workers of the sector, leaving aside the issue of work – they commented on general secretary Claudio Tarlazzi and the national secretary Ivan Viglietti of Uiltrasporti –. The decree just launched by the Government addresses the problem experienced by users regarding the increase in tariffs, but it is equally important to address the problems experienced by air transport workers linked above all to the single sector contract and to the failure to implement, even after almost two years, of article 203 of the Relaunch Decree which should bind companies operating in our country to the application of the envisaged collective agreement. This is a situation – they conclude Tarlazzi and Viglietti – which continues to fuel distorted competition and above all an exploitation of workers that is no longer tolerable and which therefore must be addressed urgently and with the involvement of all the players in the field.”
For its part, the European Commission has made it known that it “supports measures aimed at promoting connectivity at sustainable prices, as long as they are in line with the rules of the internal market. Sustainable competition, with free determination of prices, – it said The spokesperson of the European Commission for Transport Adalbert Jahnz – is usually the best guarantee of sustainable prices, in our highly liberalized transport market, successfully. However – he adds – there are possibilities, in specific and exceptional cases, to establish public service obligations to ensure minimum levels of service and territorial continuity. We do not comment on the commercial decisions of individual operators”. The services of the European Commission – underlines the spokesperson – “have contacted the Italian authorities” to receive “more precise information on the content” of the decree against high flight prices. The Commission will be able to ” pronounce” on the compliance of the decree with EU regulations “once we have clarified all the relevant information with the Italian authorities and once we have conducted our analyses”.
(Photo: Jon Flobrant on Unsplash)