ROME (AFP) - Hopes for a last-gasp deal to rescue Alitalia stayed alive on Thursday as the failing company's top unions began meeting with the embattled centre-right government.
Alitalia's largest union, CGIL, has indicated that it is prepared to reconsider after rejecting a buyout offer by an Italian consortium last week.
Unions representing pilots and flight attendants met separately earlier Thursday with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's top aide Gianni Letta and the Italian Air Company (CAI), the consortium that withdrew a billion-euro offer last week after workers rejected it.
Alitalia, which employs nearly 20,000 people on the ground and in the air, faces a Thursday deadline to come up with a solid rescue plan or lose its licence to fly.
Also Thursday, the European giant Air France-KLM indicated in Paris that it could buy a stake of up to 20 percent in a new-look Alitalia, industry sources said.
Former Alitalia boss Francesco Mengozzi, a consultant for Air France-KLM, sent a "message of interest" from the French-Dutch company's chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta to the government, the sources said.
Air France-KLM dropped a takeover bid for Alitalia in April in the face of union resistance.
Six of the airline's nine trade unions rejected the CAI deal that would have led to 3,250 job losses.
CAI's withdrawal was an embarrassment for Berlusconi, who last month promised a "miracle" to save Alitalia from bankruptcy.
Transport Minister Altero Matteoli spoke on Wednesday of a "ray of hope" for the flagship airline, while opposition leader Walter Veltroni said he was "optimistic" that the crisis could be resolved.
Alitalia, 49.9 percent state owned, is facing bankruptcy, haemorrhaging about three million euros a day, with a debt of about 1.2 billion euros (1.7 billion dollars).
The airline's special administrator, Augusto Fantozzi, was due on Thursday to present a plan to Italy's civil aviation authority, ENAC, that calls for a reduction in the number of flights.
The company has been looking for a buyer for months. Investors grouped in CAI called off takeover talks on September 18 after six of the nine unions rejected their restructuring plan for the airline.
