Vienna - The Austrian government will have to rescue Austrian Airlines AG if the privatisation process fails, Transport Minister Werner Faymann said Wednesday, as he announced that there was one valid bid for the ailing flag carrier.

Neither Faymann nor the government holding OeIAG said whether the German airline Deutsche Lufthansa AG had submitted the offer for the 42.75-per-cent stake in Austrian Airlines that is held by OeIAG.

Although French-Dutch carrier Air France-KLM announced Tuesday their withdrawal from the bidding process, analysts said that OeIAG could decide Monday to give Lufthansa and Air France another month or so for their offers.

While Faymann left it open whether there was another, incomplete, offer, the government holding OeIAG said it would stick to its schedule and "take and convey a decision on Monday".

Unconfirmed media reports stated that the Russia-based S7 Airlines had also failed to submit a valid proposal.

Despite its announcement, Air France-KLM has said it was ready for further talks.

"I do believe that it is still interested," Paul Wessely, an analyst at UniCredit Bank Austria in Vienna, told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

Both the French and German airlines needed more information, but were also "playing for time" to put the Austrian company under pressure, he said.

Lufthansa was simply pursuing a careful strategy, said Frank Skodzik at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, because investing in a company before it had been sufficiently restructured presented an additional risk. "In terms of Lufthansa's strategy, this is about the additional competition that would arise in case of a takeover by Air France," Skodzik said of the German carrier's motive for pursuing the troubled Austrian airline.

As the privatisation faced uncertainty, the price of Austrian Airlines shares crashed to 2.9 euros (3.9 dollars) on the Vienna stock market, a decline of 29.7 per cent from yesterday.

Analysts, Austrian media and even one member of the OeIAG's supervisory board criticised the state holding for allowing a situation where the flag carrier was now left with few options.

Board member Gerhard Fritz told Austrian news agency APA he had not received any information yet on which he could base a decision by Monday.

"The OeIAG screwed it up," he said.

Last week, the management of Austrian Airlines issued a warning that the company would end the year with a deficit of 125 million euros (178 million dollars), mainly as a result of high fuel costs.

The number of passengers on the airline decreased by 4 per cent over the year ending in September. (dpa)