ROMA (ITALPRESS) – The landing of Italo in Germany “means a lot, if I think about how we left, with the fundamental support of some friends and Banca Intesa”. Thus the president of Italo, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, in an interview with Milano Finanza. “Competition is a vaccine, not a virus, and from our Italian experience, from which Banca Intesa has also had an excellent gain from its investment, we intend to move for the operation in Germany. In Italy we had a boom in the use of the train compared to the plane, before it was 30% compared to 70%, now the use of the vehicle on the tracks has turned over as proportions. And we have improved the quality of service, stations and means. They’ve earned us all,” he explains. On possible German stakes, Montezemolo says: “I don’t know, something we expect from the last national monopoly operator left in European countries, Deutsche Bahn. I know that we will face the difficulties of those who enter a market with a monopoly that railway German, but we have big shoulders and if I think precisely what we have passed in Italy, when we challenged the monopoly of the Railways of the State, I know that we will also make it in Germany”. Then, on why Italo chose Germany, he adds: “Because it is a perfect country for the train, from this point of view it looks a lot like Italy, and it is late from the point of view of the infrastructure and the degree of satisfaction of the customers”.
“In the beginning 18 German cities will be connected with 50 daily services. Then Germany is the heart of Europe, we can connect the North, from Holland to the North Sea, all the East, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, and the South, with Italy. And then we’ll get the Germans to work, the suppliers. It is an operation of 3.6 billion, 26 trains plus an option for another 14 and 30 years of maintenance, 2,500 recruitment in Germany between direct and indirect, a German company with management and German staff. We are setting up the machine, which will have Italian software but a German hardware”. Finally, on the crisis in the car sector, Montezemolo emphasizes that “European rules have certainly not helped because fixing at 2035 the end of thermal engines was wrong. Europe has hit the car. Then he did not help the fact that car manufacturers did not understand before the crisis that was coming. Third, it did not help the fact that young people no longer want cars but prefer to change the smartphone. The fourth element is the limited traffic zones that have reduced circulation and of course also the climate aspect. Fifth element the boom of small machines, which has reduced the margins of much and the advent of the Chinese ones“, chiosa.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
