Wednesday, January 28

Business Weak

This past week a lot happened in Italy’s business world. I thought I’d give you a brief rundown:

The first week of operation of the new! (but obviously not improved) Alitalia started with … a strike.
Always quite comforting to know that some things are quite stable in our unstable world.

Tied to this is the heady Milan meeting in which the government and flight partners asked that Linate airport be closed down (this proposal has been - thankfully - and steadfastedly refused).
Milan’s Linate is a 20 min. drive to the city center, versus 40 mins. (on a good day) for Malpensa. It only makes sense, with all those businesspeople flying back & forth from Rome, Naples, Bari and Palermo to add a few extra hours to their day. Perhaps the motto can be: “Malpensa: Keeping Italy Unproductive”.

And of course, the biggest news is the Chrysler – FIAT partnership. Now—you know you’re in deep doo-doo when pairing up with FIAT is your best option.
I hope that they bring America the cute little FIAT ‘500, or Topolino, which in my opinion is the best design to come out of Italy – ever. And, with all those Chrysler dealers around, FIAT might not suffer from their poor image which brought the moniker, Fix It Again Tony.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Berlusconi - sounds like he is taking a cue from stars who will do anything for mindshare, to get in the news. Next thing you know, he'll be claiming he has Tourette's Syndrome, but that would mean he would recognize his stupid comments as being wrong.

Irreverent Italy said...

I think you're onto something...He must be taking his cue from Grande Fratello...