Italy's transport minister said yesterday he believed the rival bids for airline Alitalia needed more in-depth study.

Alessandro Bianchi also told reporters on the sidelines of a conference that he had called a meeting with unions to discuss the Alitalia situation today.

"I feel the need to study them better and more in depth," said Mr Bianchi, hours before Alitalia's board was due to meet to weigh bids by Air One and Air France-KLM.

Domestic challenger Air One, smaller than state-controlled Alitalia but backed by Italy's No. 1 retail bank Intesa Sanpaolo, has offered €1 cent per Alitalia share and total investments of €5.3 billion by 2012.

Air France-KLM, the world's largest airline by revenues, has bid €35 cents per Alitalia share in a share-swap offer and offered to buy all Alitalia's convertible bonds. But financial details are secondary to a decision which must win over combative unions and national interests that want to keep the loss-making carrier firmly in Italian hands.

"Under AirFrance's plan, Alitalia would disappear," Intesa Sanpaolo chief executive officer Corrado Passera told Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published yesterday.

"The alliance with Air One would, on the other hand, generate a new carrier, whose main mission would be to make 'Italy fly'," he added.

Regional interests are also at stake as Air France's plan would keep Rome's Fiumicino airport as its Italiana hub while rival Milan's Malpensa would just provide local connections.