Air France-KLM has sent Alitalia unions a revised takeover plan containing a lay-off proposal the unions have already rejected.
In the plan sent to unions late on Thursday night, the French-Dutch giant confirmed the number of proposed lay-offs as 2,100 - after earlier this week appearing to suggest the eventual number might be lower.
Pilots and other staff immediately turned down the plan despite a pledge to ease the impact of the job cuts - ''no worker will be abandoned'' - and promises of worker involvement in management decisions.
Air France-KLM also promised to end a freeze on salary increases.
The leader of pilots union UP Fabio Berti said there was no point pursuing negotiations.
''It's a closed chapter, we're not taking it,'' he said.
UP called the revised plan ''scandalous and unacceptable''.
Flight assistants said the proposal was ''unrealistic''.
Alitalia shares fell 17% after Berti said he would rather see the airline go bankrupt than accept the plan.
Union approval is need for the takeover, which has already been greenlighted by Alitalia management and the Italian government.
If negotiations fail experts say the airline, which is losing about a million euros a day, may go the way of Sabena of Belgium and Swiss Air which went to the wall and were picked up for a song but at greatly reduced capacity.
Ex-premier and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, who polls suggest could be re-elected on April 14, this week reiterated that an Italian consortium was being put together to save Alitalia.
He promised to unveil the members in a matter of days and said it would need about a month to assess ''the real situation'' at the airline.
Berlusconi's opponents accused him of electioneering while the ex-premier pooh-poohed press attempts to identify possible consortium members.
CISL union leader Raffaele Bonanni, head of one of Italy's three union confederations, said Friday any alternative offers, whether Italian or foreign, would be ''welcome''.
He said Air France-KLM chief Jean-Cyril Spinetta ''had promised more''.
Spinetta is slated to fly to Rome Monday to discuss the latest plan with unions - barring a cancellation over the weekend.
In his new proposal, Spinetta said ''we cannot go any further without jeopardising the very foundations of our plan for Alitalia''.
He said the proposed plan would preserve Alitalia's Italian identity, just as KLM had kept its Dutch identity after teaming up with the French giant.
Alitalia would see ''sustainable and profitable growth,'' as KLM had, Spinetta promised.
The Alitalia fleet would be cut by 37 passenger planes and 3 cargo planes. Cargo operations would cease in 2010. But Air France-KLM said it would renew Alitalia's fleet and bring the ailing airline back to profitability by focusing on its Rome hub and turning Malpensa in Milan into a targeted business 'gateway' to northern Italy, he said.
Handling operations and light maintenance at Rome Fiumicino are included in the plan but heavy maintenance at a Naples facility are not, the plan said.
With the arrival of a new summer schedule, Alitalia is already shifting some international and intercontinental services from Malpensa to Rome.
The first six of a dozen or so flights will move down on Sunday.
