The Government and Aer Lingus are now under pressure to resolve quickly the impasse over the rejection by TEAM workers of a £54.5 million offer.
The Government should have come out earlier in support of the deal to allow the sale of the company to FLS, according to Mr Steffen Harpoth, chairman of the Danish company.
He was speaking yesterday after FLS announced it was suspending a "due diligence" examination of TEAM which involved it examining the company's books in advance of the intended purchase.
This means that FLS is stepping back to see whether a deal between Aer Lingus and its TEAM employees can be reached quickly to buy out the employees' letters of guarantee from Aer Lingus.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, is to meet all TEAM union representatives tomorrow to discuss their concerns. She is expected to outline the seriousness of the situation.
An Aer Lingus spokesman said yesterday that some informal meetings would probably take place over the next couple of days and if issues needed to be clarified this would be done. However, he said the company was still reviewing the situation. No formal meetings between Aer Lingus executives and the unions were planned until after tomorrow's meeting with Ms O'Rourke.
Mr Harpoth told The Irish Times that FLS was not abandoning its bid but to do a deal there had to be a willing seller and a buyer.
"It is not for us (FLS) to decide whether TEAM is sold or not. It is up to the Government to come out and say they wish to sell TEAM."
Mr Harpoth said he understand Ms O'Rourke had emphasised that TEAM should be sold. She did this in the Dail on Wednesday. He welcomed the statement and said it was very helpful and may help to change the attitude of many people in TEAM.
He said FLS had spent a lot of time and money on the due diligence process. "But we cannot continue without knowing there is a willing seller who can achieve the will of the company to sell it."
The company had no wish to make anyone redundant. "We are only interested in investing in TEAM," he said. "We are at capacity in England [where the company has aircraft maintenance facilities] and we could transfer a number of activities from there to Ireland."
Mr Harpoth said he respected the employees' decision not to accept the offer. "It is obviously not about money. There are principles involved and I respect principles.
"The combination of TEAM and FLS would be an excellent one, but if the right conditions are not there - the first one being that TEAM is supportive of the deal - then I cannot see it happening."
He said although FLS was not walking away it was a big company and if other opportunities came along, then who knew what would happen.
Meanwhile, the Aer Lingus spokesman said the company had had a good "businesslike" meeting with FLS executives yesterday morning and understood its move to suspend due diligence. He stressed that the company still wanted to sell TEAM to FLS.