Alitalia (AZA, Rome Fiumicino) is now expected to be finally relaunched as a new company based on Compagnia Aerea Italiana and merged with Air One (AP/Rome Fiumicino) on January 12 with a total fleet of 148 aircraft. CAI presented a final offer in early November after lengthy negotiations with Italian trade unions. It has received a 1.1 billion EUR investment from 16 investors to allow it to take over Air One, Air One CityLiner (CYL/Rome Fiumicino), Alitalia, Alitalia Express (XM/Rome Fiumicino) and low-cost carrier Volareweb.com (VE/Milan Malpensa) and the debts of all carriers. Air One and its CityLiner regional division have already been acquired by CAI for 300 million EUR and will continue to operate as a separate carrier operating in close cooperation with the new Alitalia for now. The fate of the Alitalia cargo division is still unclear although several bids have been received to take over the division and its assets, cargo flights to Atlanta, Cairo, Chennai, Miami, New York JFK and Tripoli have been suspended already and two of five MD-11Fs have been withdrawn from service. Air France-KLM (AF/Paris CDG) and Lufthansa (LH/Frankfurt Intl) reportedly are still considering taking minority stakes in CAI although Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi still seems to be fighting against any possible foreign investors in CAI. In addition to the network cuts summarized below, Alitalia has also temporarily suspended some flights with weak demand between November and early January. In early November, it has given up its routes from Milan Malpensa to Amsterdam, Belgrade, Bilbao, Naples (Air One continues to operate on the route), Prague, Stuttgart and Trieste, from Rome Fiumicino to Berlin Tegel, Dubai, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Malaga, Thessaloniki, Valencia, Vienna and Zurich as well as from Venice Marco Polo to Cagliari and Naples. In the meantime it has also given up its routes from Milan Malpensa to Catania and Palermo although Air One continues to operate Malpensa-Palermo services. Alitalia has also not launched its planned Rome Fiumicino-Dakar route. Air One will give up its Catania-Naples-Zurich service and its routes from Milan Malpensa to Berlin Tegel, Brussels Ntl, Chicago O’Hare and Thessaloniki, from Naples to Trieste and from Rome Fiumicino to Brussels Ntl, Copenhagen and Trieste on January12. Air One will continue to operate twice daily Naples-Catania service, while Alitalia will operate Rome Fiumicino-Brussels Ntl and Rome Fiumicino-Trieste flights. Air One will wet-lease Volareweb.com A320-200s for some of its services from Milan Malpensa as of January 12 while Alitalia Express will ground its entire ATR-72 and ERJ-145 fleet by then. Alitalia has already withdrawn eight MD-82s and two B767-300ERs from service and is expected to permanently ground additional MD-82 aircraft in January. Air One has meanwhile confirmed an order for additional A320-200s.