PRESS RELEASE

ALITALIA: ANTITRUST INITIATES PROCEEDINGS TO DETERMINE THE CORRECTNESS OF THE INFORMATION SUPPLIED TO PASSENGERS FLYING ON OTHER CARRIERS UNDER THE COMPANY'S LOGO

Under investigation - communications to consumers regarding the Carpatair flight and other flights based on a number of partnership and code sharing agreements with other traditional and small-sized carriers. The proceedings will also address the fairness of the 'Carnet Italia' offer and the company's conduct in regard to the cancellation of tickets for multiple stops.

The Antitrust decided to initiate proceedings to determine whether Alitalia is following the Consumer Code guidelines on unfair commercial practices with respect to the information being provided to passengers on the Carpatair flight and any and all flights based on partnership and code sharing agreements. The proceedings were initiated in response to various reports, including one from the Codacons association, and to official investigations by Authority officials.

Simulations revealed that the company who was actually operating the flight was not indicated until the third screen of the on line reservation process (after selecting the destination on the first screen and the fare on the second screen) by means of the phrase “Flight operated by Carpatair," using an extremely small font size. Similar results were found for flights carried out in partnership and through code sharing with other companies. In essence, the proceedings will need to determine whether, in these cases, Alitalia is supplying consumers with sufficient information on the carrier's identity and the specific features of the service being provided.

The Antitrust, in view of the numerous reports received from consumers, will also assess Alitalia's conduct during the promotion and sales of the product known as “Carnet Italia” (six or twelve non-stop one-way flights,

priced at 109 or 99 euros, respectively) and the sale of plane tickets involving multiple stops. In the first case, there was insufficient indication of the significant limitations on the offer, particularly in relation to the possibility of finding flights on all of Alitalia's national routes using the Carnet tickets. In the second case, for round trip tickets and flights with intermediate stops, Alitalia was applying the obligatory sequential use of the flight vouchers (aka no show rule), on penalty of being denied embarkation for the return flight or the next flight, but without sufficient disclosure of these limitations at the time of purchase or the provision of a procedure for taking the return flight anyway.

Rome, 07^th February 2013