Evaluation of the Current Status of Alitalia Essay

Evaluation of the Current Status of Alitalia - Essay Example Correspondingly, this report intends to examine the prospects of Etihad Airways which has started to examine the possibility to buy a majority/total stake in Alitalia, the Italian struggling airline. Alitalia is a prominent Italian based airline group and one of the leading players in the European airline industry. The group operates under the brand name of Alitalia and offers an assortment of premium services at all levels including the purview of domestic, international and intercontinental destinations. Air One is a subsidiary of Alitalia Group that provides low-cost flights to domestic and international routes. Alitalia is a privately owned group and 75% of its ownership is retained by Italian entrepreneurial and financial world while the remaining 25% is acquired by the biggest European airline, Air France-KLM. The group is also the member of SkyTeam alliance and has opened transatlantic joint venture with Air France KLM and Delta. The group over the years has been able to secure and distinguish its position amid its customers particularly due to its superior service quality, maintenance, and passenger care. The pool of well-trained employees along with effective operational management has established it as the most punctual airline across Europe. At the same time, the extensive and ambitious investment plan to make its fleet modernize has tremendously facilitated it with attaining greater customer confidence and trust. Apart from transportation of passengers, the company also operates in cargo sector. It has been able to meet the customers’ shipping requirements through the effective arrangement of cargo charter flights (Alitalia n.d.). Moreover, it has the most modern fleet of 132 aircraft. The company’s financial health during 2012 was worst affected with increasing loss and augmenting debt. However, amid this sluggish performance, the market share of the group across all routes continued to st ay stable at around 22.6% (Alitalia 2013).

Should Stem Cell Research be Unbound Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Should Stem Cell be Unbound - Research Proposal Example Spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease are two examples that have been championed by high-profile media personalities (for instance, Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox). The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research estimates that stem cell research shows promise to develop cures and/or new treatments for 100 million Americans who currently suffer from a wide variety of diseases and disorders. There are several types of issues to consider as we reflect upon stem cell research. ... Many frame the debate about stem cell research around the question of "when life begins," although the issue is not when life begins, but when personhood begins and ends. Human life began millions of years ago when our ancestors reached a stage of evolutionary development that permitted the separate species, Homo sapiens to arise. Human life will end when our species becomes extinct. Stem cell research is a controversial issue in America as, with the present state of technology, the creation of a human embryonic stem cell line requires the destruction of a human embryo. Stem cell debates have motivated and reinvigorated the pro-life movement. There has been a deep and bitter dispute over the conduct of this research; many pro-lifers, for instance, Roman Catholics and conservative Protestants, have opposed this research. According to them, the embryos from which these stem cells are extracted are actually individual entities and have a soul to them. Since the embryos are killed when the stem cells are removed, or stored for long periods of time, long past their viable storage life, pro-lifers view the extraction procedure as murder. In the United States alone, there have been estimates of at least 400,000 such embryos. However, not everyone is opposed to stem cell research. Many groups that even protest it are comfortable with certain forms of cell research. Plent y of experiments and tests have been carried out to determine improved and more efficient ways of saving lives and replacing organs, without having to kill â€Å"pre-embryos.†