Salvation, in extremis. The third tender to entrust the Alghero routes is the right one: barring last-minute surprises, AeroItalia will manage the connections with Rome and Ita Airways those with Milan. Even if it will be a fixed-term territorial continuity: the contracts that the Region is preparing to sign in the next few hours will expire in October, immediately after the summer. This means that negotiations for the future must begin in the next few days, or we risk a new emergency.

Model

The companies have submitted offers to operate both routes. But this time the maxi reductions of the December tender (up to 75% compared to the starting price) have not been seen.

On the Alghero-Rome the best economic proposal is that of AeroItalia, which has offered a 10% discount (about 2.9 million euros for eight months of service) while the Alghero-Milan route is destined to end up in the hands of Ita Airways with the least effort: the discount is 0.15%. Little but still better than AeroItalia which has re-proposed the auction base of the Region.

Before proceeding with the definitive assignment of the routes, it will be necessary to complete some bureaucratic steps. The tender commission will check all the documents submitted by the companies. And then we will have to wait for another deadline: by tomorrow the other companies will be able to come forward to manage the routes without economic compensation (as Volotea did for the Olbia-Rome). Only after this last step will there be the green light for the award. Then the companies will have to present the flight plan, which must receive the OK from the Region and ENAC. Only then will tickets be available for sale. In short: a rush will be needed to arrive in time for the appointment on February 17, when the first flights of the new contract are scheduled.

The governor

The president of the Region Christian Solinas announces a trip to Brussels after the departure of the new system to renegotiate continuity: «A model of compromise with the EU that does not satisfy us and that we are working to modify as soon as possible is taking off agreement with the Italian state», says the governor. «For years, regulations and directives from Brussels have tended to limit the possibility for Sardinia to govern its continuity with frequencies and times that meet the needs of Sardinians. The day after the launch of this model of continuity we will be in Brussels with our technicians and with the Italian government to represent the definitive need to give a place to the mobility law of the Sardinians which is peculiar with respect to the regulations on competition and State".

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