Vienna  - Austria's chancellor on Monday stressed his opposition to plans by the country's ailing flag carrier Austrian Airlines (AUA) to take another airline on board as a strategic partner.

"The Austrian government is acting on the assumption that AUA will remain an Austrian company," Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said on the sidelines of a press conference in Vienna.

He criticised the fact that there was no valid decision on a possible sale of AUA's majority stake, which had been suggested by AUA's management several times over the past weeks, and that the government's position on the subject changed.

The discussion had been triggered earlier this month when a key Saudi investor expected to acquire a 20-per-cent stake in the airline pulled out of the deal, citing misinformation on part of AUA's management regarding losses of 60.4 million euros (94 million dollars) in the first quarter of 2008.

AUA CEO Alfred Oetsch said in an interview with the daily Der Standard on the weekend that he supported a "clear solution - that is the sale of the majority."

The management was currently considering options and would decide by autumn, if and with whom a partnership was feasible. One potential candidate often mentioned by Austrian media is Germany's Lufthansa.

Guesenbauer criticised those remarks, saying the public was being made uncertain by all the discussion over "unlaid eggs."

Austrian was a "financially stable company," Oetsch said, but ever rising kerosene prices made it questionable whether AUA could produce sustainable positive results.

According to passenger data released on Monday, Austrian increased passenger volume by 4.3 per cent in April. In the first four months of 2008, the airline carried 3.2 million passengers, up by 2.9 per cent compared with the same period last year. (dpa)