Logistics, MSC counts on AlisCargo to expand its air division – Corriere.it

Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the Aponte family’s global shipping giant, is preparing to acquire AlisCargo Airlines to expand its MSC Air Cargo air cargo division. what he learns the Courier from sources close to the operation. A confidential due diligence process began some time ago in order to take over the assets of the company specializing in intercontinental cargo. The two companies do not comment.

The stages

AlisCargo was founded by Domenico Alcide Leali, former owner of Air Dolomiti, the carrier from Verona which was later sold to the Lufthansa group. MSC – through Air Cargo – interested in the operation due to its license to operate (the Coa) which has been suspended since last December 27 due to the lack of aircraft: for this reason, from what we learn, the maritime giant will ask Enac for its “reactivation”. The operation – as always in these cases – will have to be submitted to the competent authorities for the green light and subject to the satisfaction of a series of conditions.

The operations

I don’t know the value of the AlisCargo acquisition. The sources underline that with this move MSC will also take over AlisCargo’s know-how and human capital. Not only. It will become the full holder of its own IATA international aviation code – “CP” – to be affixed on the connections of its aircraft with the white-yellow-black MSC Air Cargo livery launched in September 2022. Currently the maritime giant flies a Boeing 777 freighter operated by the US company Atlas Air in Europe, Central America and Asia. This year the fleet will increase to four jets, next year it should double to 8-9. Our first plane has been making profits since its first takeoff, he recently told the Courier the shipowner Gianluigi Aponte.

The strategies

MSC’s move is part of a context in which – thanks to the pandemic, clogged ports in various areas and the e-commerce boom – the protagonists of maritime transport have also extended their activities by air. CMA CGM not only entered the shareholding of Air France-KLM (with 9%), it also launched CMA CGM Air Cargo in 2021 with a fleet of 6 aircraft and ordered 7 more. MSC’s other rival, Maersk , created Maersk Air Cargo with the initial goal of employing 8 aircraft. In Lufthansa – which already has an important cargo division – a year ago the main shareholder became Klaus-Michael Khne who also holds the majority of the logistics group Khne + Nagel and the main shareholder of the Hapag-Lloyd container shipping company.

Operation Ita

MSC had first tried to exploit possible synergies with Lufthansa by proposing to take over 80% of Ita Airways in January 2022, the Italian airline owned by the Ministry of Economy. But at the end of August the Treasury had preferred the offer of a US fund with which negotiations have led to nothing. In the autumn, the new Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti again involved Lufthansa and MSC to relaunch Ita. But the Aponte family – also annoyed by the attitude of some members of the previous Mef and by how they handled the dossier – preferred to take a step back. For us, Ita is a closed matter, the owner himself had said.