More than half the unions at Alitalia have turned down contracts offered by the consortium aiming to buy the carrier.
Five of the nine unions at the airline turned down the agreements after a meeting with the airline”s new prospective managing director Rocco Sabelli and officials from the government”s labour ministry.
Under the deal to save the airline, which went into receivership last week, the centre-right Italian government agreed to merge the profitable parts of Alitalia with another carrier, Air One, and liquidate the rest.
A group of 16 investors have since formed a consortium, Compagnia Aerea Italiana, and bid for the carrier.
But acceptance by the unions of the contracts is a condition of the consortium continuing with its offer.
A deadline of this Thursday (September 11) has been set for an agreement to be reached.
A bid for Alitalia earlier this year by Air France KLM collapsed after failing to reach an agreement with the unions.
This airline has since indicated it would like a minority stake in the new carrier which is set to emerge if the talks are successful.
Visit www.alitalia.com.
Stanley Slaughter
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