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ROME/MILAN, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Silvano Cassano, the chiefexecutive of loss-making Italian airline Alitalia, has resignedwith immediate effect after less than a year in the job, thecarrier said on Friday.
Alitalia last year picked Cassano as CEO of the new companyformed when Abu Dhabi-based carrier Etihad agreed to buy a 49percent stake in the Italian airline as part of a 1.76 billioneuro ($2 billion) rescue plan.
Cassano, 58, is leaving for personal reasons and his dutieswill be shared between other executives until a replacement isfound, Alitalia said, with a spokesman adding that Cassano'sdeparture was unrelated to airline's financial performance.
Hours after announcing Cassano's departure, Alitaliareported a net loss of 130 million euros ($148 million)in thefirst half of 2015, which it said was better than it hadbudgeted for.
It said the loss had increased by 30 million euros in thesecond quarter from the first and had been affected by a fire inMay at Rome's main Fiumicino airport, which had cost it some 80million euros.
Alitalia has been loss-making for years but after the tie-upwith Etihad it forecast a return to profitability by 2017, atarget it confirmed on Friday.
However, a change at the helm so early into its latestrestructuring does not bode well for the company's recoverypath, said Andrea Giuricin, a transport analyst at Milan'sBicocca university.
"The airline has done poorly in the first three months ofthe year, which are usually the most difficult, and the secondand third quarter are also likely to have been very weak afterVueling, Ryanair and easyJet have addeda number of flights from Rome's Fiumicino airport," he saidbefore the first-half results were released.
Low-cost airlines have added more than 200 weekly flightsfrom Fiumicino during the summer season, he added.
The tie-up with Etihad is expected to bring Alitalia moneyto invest in more profitable long-haul routes and make it lessreliant on domestic and regional services, where it hasstruggled to compete against budget carriers and high-speedtrains.
Before joining Alitalia, Cassano had served as Chairman andCEO of Italian shipping company Grandi Navi Veloci and hadstints as CEO at fashion company Benetton Group and at Fiat AutoFinancial and Consumer Services.($1 = 0.8755 euros) (Reporting by Massimiliano di Giorgio and Agnieszka Flak,additional reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by David Goodmanand Susan Thomas)
