Italy`s government said Wednesday it had given the go-ahead for the ailing national flag-carrier Alitalia to be sold to a group of investors for around one billion euros.

Troubled Italian airline Alitalia`s debts have soared to some 2.3 billion euros, the company`s special administrator said Sunday as a pilot and air crew strike caused a seventh day of cancelled flights.

Augusto Fantozzi told RAI television he had `around two billion in ordinary debt for the supply of goods and services,` before taking into account a 300-million-euro government loan.

MILAN, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - The chairman of Italian air carrier Alitalia Maurizio Prato hopes to present a buyer for the airline to the state within a month, union sources said on Tuesday.

Fabio Berti, the chairman of the pilots' union Anpac, said after a union meeting that Prato 'thinks he will be in a position to present a buyer within a month.'

Prato met unions on Tuesday to brief them on the privatisation process.

The Italian state, which owns 49.9 percent of Alitalia, will have the last word on the chosen buyer.

MILAN, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Italian air carrier Alitalia said on Monday it has decided to pursue contacts with six groups with a view to a takeover.

The six groups are Russian airline Aeroflot, Air France-KLM, AP Holding which is the holding company of Air One owner Carlo Toto, a consortium headed by investor Antonio Baldassarre, German carrier Lufthansa and the US investment fund TPG.

MILAN, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Air France-KLM is weighing a partial bid for Italian carrier Alitalia and is looking for an Italian partner to join it, the newspaper Corriere della Sera reported Monday.

Alitalia, in which the state has a stake of 49.9 percent, is to hold a board meeting later in the day to consider five possible buyers, press reports said here.

In addition to Air France-KLM, Germany's Lufthansa, Air One of Italy, the US investment fund TPG and a group of Italian investors could also be interested, according to Corriere della Sera.

MILAN, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - The board of Alitalia, the struggling Italian flag carrier, will hold a meeting on Monday at which Citibank will give a report on potential buyers, the airline said Thursday.

Air France-KLM, the Italian airline Air One and Germany's Lufthansa have all been mentioned as potential buyers of Alitalia, which is 49.9 percent held by the Italian state.

The Italian company, backed by Citigroup, in early September began meetings with potential partners.

ROME, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Alitalia, the struggling Italian flag carrier, is in a 'comatose' state and the airline is being kept that way by interfering politicians and unions, its chairman said Tuesday.

'Alitalia is in a comatose state, it is in the intensive care unit,' Maurizio Prato told senators in Rome, ANSA news agency reported.

ROME, Sept 15, 2007 (AFP) - An offer by Irish airline Ryanair to begin operating out of Milan's Malpensa airport in place of Italian carrier Alitalia will be 'considered', Italy's transport minister said in an interview Saturday.

'It would be mad not to examine an offer of a billion euros (1.4 billion dollars),' Alessandro Bianchi said in Saturday's edition of the Corriere della sera daily.

'I cannot judge this offer from a technical point of view but if a company as large as Ryanair decides to make such an investment, its offer must be considered.'

MILAN, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - Irish budget airline Ryanair said Thursday it planned to begin operating about 50 routes in and out of Milan's Malpensa airport vacated by the ailing Italian flagship Alitalia under a new business plan.

'We are ready to invest 840 million dollars (600 million euros) in Malpensa by deploying 12 Boeing 737-800s there by 2010, which would enable us to open 50 international and 10 national routes,' Alessia Viviani, Ryanair's marketing director for Italy, told AFP.

MILAN, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - Italy's struggling national carrier Alitalia said its net loss narrowed marginally in the first half of the year but it still has enough cash reserves to keep flying for another year while new management seeks a buyer.

The airline, which is 49.9-percent state-owned, said its first-half net loss was 211.1 million euros (293.8 million dollars), a slight narrowing from the 220.2-million-euro loss reported in the same period a year earlier.

ROME, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - The boss of Italy's troubled Alitalia carrier wants to see the airline's state holding sold off by the end of the year, he said in an interview published Saturday.

Maurizio Prato, who was appointed by the government in August to find a buyer for Alitalia as soon as possible following the failure of an earlier bid, told the financial daily Il Sole-24 Ore, 'I want to get back to my own business by Christmas.'

Prato is also head of Fintecna, a public group which holds 51 percent of Alitalia's ground-handling company AZ Servizi.

PARIS, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - French airline Air France-KLM said Wednesday that it was open to takeover talks with Italy's troubled Alitalia carrier, which is seeking a buyer, and with Iberia of Spain.

Air France will 'listen attentively' if talks are sought, chief executive Jean Cyril Spinetta said at a news conference at Roissy aiport near Paris, reiterating comments he made last month.

He said that Alitalia's new restructuring plan, which includes moves to launch another capital increase and cut an unspecified number of jobs, was 'suitable.'

ROME, Sept 1, 2007 (AFP) - A total of 18 medium-haul flights by troubled Italian airline Alitalia out of Milan's Malpensa airport were cancelled Saturday as pilots staged a work-to-rule protest.

ANSA news agency said the protest was against plans to cut some loss-making flights to Asia and route others out of Rome instead of Milan in an effort to improve Alitalia's disastrous financial situation.

MILAN, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Loss-making Italian airline Alitalia outlined a new rescue strategy on Thursday that included plans to launch another capital increase and cut an unspecified number of jobs.

'The board has given a mandate to the chairman to rapidly launch a first singling out of potential investors and their industrial and financial plans, and to complete this in the shortest time possible,' Alitalia said in a statement.

MILAN, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Loss-making Italian airline Alitalia is preparing a major capital increase and a job-cutting plan, which are to be discussed by the group's board on Thursday, the company said.

The Italian government failed to privatise the state-controlled company earlier this year because of a lack of bidders, and the latest measures are designed to make the company more attractive to potential buyers.

ROME, Aug 21, 2007 (AFP) - A group of investors led by Italy's former constitutional court president Antonio Baldassarre is interested in acquiring Alitalia which has been put up for privatisation, the airline said Tuesday.

Baldassarre called the airline on behalf of the group to express an interest, Alitalia said, adding that Italian stock exchange rules required it to publish a statement.

The group had asked for a meeting with Alitalia management which was to take place in late August or early September, it said.

ROME, July 31, 2007 (AFP) - Alitalia chief executive Bernardino Libonati resigned Tuesday after efforts to privatise the troubled airline failed, the company said in a statement.

Libonati, an expert in corporate law, accepted the post in February.

The Italian finance ministry will nominate Maurizio Prato as Alitalia head at the next board meeting.

The last real hope for the privatisation process ended earlier this month when Italian airline Air One, owned by businessman Carlo Toto, announced it would not bid for the state's 49.9-percent stake in Alitalia.