Alitalia Unions Return for Talks in Last-gasp Effort to Save Airline

For sale: one airline, with aging planes and strike-prone staff but includes stylish flight attendants. Hasn't made a profit since 1999. Seller willing to write off €1.2bn (£950m) of debts. Can be sold in bits. All offers welcome, no matter how small.

That, in essence, was the offer that Alitalia's bankruptcy commissioner was today posting on the company's website in a desperate attempt to save the stricken airline from liquidation. Advertisements also seeking expressions of interest for all or part of Alitalia are to be published in various Italian and international newspapers tomorrow.

Potential buyers have until next Tuesday to make themselves known. But the bankruptcy commissioner, Augusto Fantozzi, was quoted yesterday by the Rome daily Il Messaggero saying, "For the moment, absolutely no one has come forward."

Fantozzi's tender offer will be the fourth attempt in two years to find a buyer. Italy's previous, center-left government tried to auction its 49% controlling stake, but it attached such onerous conditions that all the potential buyers withdrew. Then it opened direct talks with Air France-KLM and was on the brink of sealing a deal when Silvio Berlusconi, then on his way to becoming Italy's new prime minister, in effect vetoed it. In a bid to keep the company in Italian hands, his advisers pulled together a consortium of potential buyers, the Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI). But they too pulled out last week after a majority of the unions unanimously rejected the consortium's terms.

With Alitalia's liquidity ebbing away, there is now the prospect of a company failure that would throw Italy's transport system into chaos and discredit its prime minister. According to figures published by the newspaper La Repubblica, the company will have only €30-50m left by the start of next week.

At the weekend, frantic attempts to bring the unions and CAI back to the negotiating table were rewarded with signs of movement. The leader of the biggest union opposed to the deal, the formerly communist CGIL, telephoned the president of CAI, Roberto Colaninno, and said he would join in talks chaired by Fantozzi. And a union representing flight attendants, one of the six labour organizations that had said "no" to the consortium, dropped its objections to CAI's terms.