Lufthansa takes over ITA Airways: A new giant in the sky of Italy!

Lufthansa takes over ITA Airways: A new giant in the sky of Italy!

Rome, Italien - Lufthansa has taken a significant step in the aviation industry by completing the takeover of 41 percent of ITA Airways for 325 million euros today. This marks the beginning of a new era for the Italian airline, which was founded in 2021 and emerged from the crisis -shaken Alitalia, as vienna.at . With the takeover, Jörg Eberhart, the former head of Air Dolomiti, is used as the new CEO of ITA Airways. Sandro Pappalardo will act as President of the airline, while the previous CEO, Fabio Lazzerini, leaves the airline.

This takeover follows years of efforts by the Italian government to privatize its national airline. Lufthansa plans to gradually expand the participation in ITA Airways to 100 percent, which could cost a total of over 800 million euros. In ITA Airways, the company sees an opportunity to strengthen its presence in Italy, the second most important market to the United States, and wants to use the synergies to expand the range of international connections. This was also emphasized by Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa, who sees the integration of ITA Airlines into the group as crucial for the future of the airline, as onemileatatime.com noted.

regulatory challenges and market dominance

However, the takeover was not approved without difficulty. In order to avoid a dominant position, Lufthansa had to hand in the start and landing rights at Milan-Linate Airport to competitors, and the competitive conditions at Rome Fiumicino Airport were also adapted. The airline plans to start cooperation with the Lufthansa Group on a commercial and operational level in the near future and to get into the existing network of Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines.