Lufthansa is edging ahead in the battle to become Alitalia's foreign partner.
Both Italian trades unions and politicians indicated they preferred the German carrier's system of using several regional hubs.
Air France KLM, rival for the foreign partner role, use a "one major hub system" and in failed talks to take over Alitalia earlier this year had said it would shift services away from Milan to Rome.
Reuters reported one source close to the talks as saying: "Lufthansa's model of small and dispersed hubs seems to be closer to the format the Italians would instinctively prefer."
The German carrier is also understood to have the backing of Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
He effectively killed off the Air France KLM bid during the May general election by stating Alitalia must remain in Italian hands.
Ministers have since made it clear that any stake held by a foreign airline would be a minority one.
But one report in the Italian press last week said that BA, while not interested in buying a stake in Alitalia, might favour a commercial deal with the airline.
Alitalia, which went into receivership last month, is poised to be taken over by a 16-strong consortium, CAI.
Its €1bn plan, which involves more than 3,000 redundancies at the bankrupt carrier, has been accepted by the airline's nine unions.
The last two came aboard after last ditch talks last week.
Under the CAI rescue, it will buy the government's 49.9% stake and merge the profitable parts of the airline with rival Air One.
The unprofitable parts will be liquidated.
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