Qatar Airways not allowed to help
While Alitalia's fate still hangs in the balance, the final curtain has fallen for another Italian airline with ambitions for long-haul flights: yesterday, 11 February 2020, the shareholders' meeting of Air Italy (Alisarda with 51% and Qatar Airways/AQA Holding with 49%) decided to liquidate the airline.
Qatar Airways, which acquired a share of the predecessor Meridiana at the end of 2017 : "Even with the changing competitive environment and the increasingly difficult market conditions severely impacting the air transport industry, Qatar Airways has continually reaffirmed its commitment, as a minority shareholder, to continue investing in the company to create value for Italy [...]. For this reason, Qatar Airways was ready once again to play its part in supporting the growth of the airline, but this would only have been possible with the commitment of all shareholders." (ah)