Yesterday, Lufthansa announced it had submitted a formal bid to acquire a stake in newly founded ITA Airways. The bid has been directed towards the Italian government, where Lufthansa hopes it’ll be approved.
The plan for Lufthansa is to acquire a minority stake initially. The carrier hopes they’ll have the option to purchase the remaining shares with time.
What airline, group or company is looking to acquire ITA Airways has been rumoured since before it started operations. Delta (later to be denied), Air France-KLM and more were all rumoured to be options potentially with joint bids. However, it is ultimately Lufthansa now in the driving seat for this acquisition.
Lufthansa is part of the wider Lufthansa group. This group features airlines such as Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, SWISS, Brussels Airlines and soon, with time, ITA Airways.
ITA Airways was established in October 2021, essentially born from the collapse of Alitalia. Many questions surrounded ITA’s feasibility and whether it would survive in a market that saw Alitalia struggle severely for years. ITA’s fresh start gave them the upper hand. It’s about how they navigate the following years that’ll be crucial to their long-term success.
For the Lufthansa Group, Italy is a critical market. Therefore, acquiring ITA means the group will have a firm grip on the market and allow it to intertwine with its existing portfolio of airlines.
Daniel Fowkes
20 Jan 2023
· Airlines
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I have question. Lufthansa Group is part of Star Alliance, and ITA is part of Skymile. If Lufthansa bought ITA, is ITA still remain skymile or drop out skymile and join the Star alliance?
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I don’t know what would end up happening but obviously, if things change and Lufthansa takes over all the shares I think you’d see change at ITA.
ITA will go to Star Alliance, just as all the other Lufthansa Group airlines are.
Any takeover of ITA would be for the better. She’s have no clue what they are doing. Lost in a downhill spiral.
Nuts, more money than sense
Why is it $500 DEARER from London to Brisbane EVEN THOUGH it’s almost 500 kilometres SHORTER??
Lufthansa has a lot of things to do with customer service itself, try to grow has to be able to contains and solve own problems first, otherwise would be a huge lost in the future, the competition is hard since meny Airways already has much better service.
Unfortunately Lufthansa Customer service is not working good, to start growth.
as myself has a bad experience recently with it.
Good move by Lufthansa, the airline has demonstrated over the years that Lufthansa can manage resourcefully which would be an advantage to ITA .
Good management is always an assett
Hope the unions are clever not to stop it
Hope lh wl manage to standardize pricing
Good luck