Emergency talks to prevent the collapse of Alitalia are due to resume in Rome after the airline warned it may have to start cancelling flights from Monday.
With the airline saying it is running out of money to buy aviation fuel, the government needs to persuade unions to back a deal that involves job cuts.
The Pope arrives in Lourdes ...
Merger of German Budget Airlines in Question ... only offer on the table is from Italian consortium CAI, which only wants Alitalia's profitable operations.
Unions have so far rejected this deal as it would mean major job losses.
Yet with the only alternative now increasingly looking like Alitalia's total collapse and the loss of all 20,000 jobs, the Italian government is hoping that the unions will back down.
'More flexible'
"We all need to have a bit more flexibility and find a balancing point, everyone giving something up," Raffaele Bonanni, head of the CISL union, told Italy's Il Giornale newspaper.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to do all he can to save Alitalia.
Securing the airline's future was one of his main election pledges before he returned to power in May.
Back in April, plans for Alitalia to be bought by Air France-KLM collapsed due to union opposition to planned job cuts.
Italy's civil aviation authority said on Saturday that Alitalia's operating licence was at risk due to the airline's admission that it was running out of funds to buy fuel.
(BBC)
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