Following the European Commission's approval of Lufthansa's acquisition of a 41% stake in ITA Airways, with an option of full ownership later, strategic plans have emerged to enhance the Italian carrier’s network, with a significant focus to be put on Eastern Europe. Markets in the former Yugoslavia, almost none of which are served by ITA, are expected to be included. Lufthansa aims to expand ITA Airways' network of Eastern European destinations in order to facilitate transfer traffic via Rome. This strategy is designed to primarily shuttle travellers from Eastern Europe to the United States, thereby expanding ITA’s market presence and improving connectivity within the Lufthansa Group's network. The Italian airline is set to join Star Alliance next year.
ITA Airways’ only destination in the former Yugoslavia is Split, which was served only in August this year for a total of just five flights. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, ITA’s predecessor, Alitalia, operated a year-round service from Rome to both Belgrade and Podgorica, as well as seasonal flights to Dubrovnik and Spit. In 2022, ITA announced launch plans for Belgrade, advertising the service on is website, but ultimately it didn’t follow through. Last year, the carrier applied for daily slots at Belgrade Airport from June, however, the flights also failed to materialise. Elsewhere, Alitalia maintained operations from Milan to Sarajevo, Zagreb and Skopje until 2007 and 2008, as well as between Rome and the Macedonian capital between 2014 and 2016. It had also announced its intention to launch operations from Fiumicino Airport to Zagreb, Sarajevo and Pristina, but these flights never came to fruition.
ITA has a wide-ranging mutual codeshare agreement with Air Serbia. Its future is likely to be challenged under Lufthansa’s control. The Serbian carrier maintains flights to eight destinations in Italy, with a ninth service, to Sardinia, set to be introduced next year. ITA also has a codeshare partnership with Croatia Airlines, which has been growing in recent years. Under Lufthansa’s plans for ITA and its expansion in Eastern Europe, subsidiary Air Dolomiti will also be employed to shuttle passengers through Italy onwards to far away markets. In 2021, Air Dolomiti expressed interest in opening a base in Ljubljana, however, it is alleged the plan did not get approval from the Slovenian government due to the amount of financial assistance requested by the regional carrier.
Hopefully they start Ljubljana
ReplyDeleteI assume it's least prioritised out of the larger ex-Yu airports.
DeleteLJU is LHG fortress so I don't know what you are talking about.
DeleteAustrian does not fly due to proximety and ITA is unlikely either.
DeleteProximity for sure is not the reason.
DeleteAir Dolomiti could come as article suggests. Their E190s/95s would be perfect for LJU.
DeleteThere are a few different reasons for Austrian not flying to LJU and proximity is not one of them. I expect ITA soon after entering *A in LJU, at least daily, probably operated by Air Dolomiti (but hopefully not under Air Dolomiti flight number).
DeleteIf proximity would perhaps be the reason, then why are they flying to Klagenfurt, Graz or Zagreb?
DeleteZagreb is further and Klagenfurt/Graz are major domestic cities which they operate under PSO I believe
DeleteZagreb has no direct train service.
DeleteLjubljana has no *useful* direct or any other train service. VIE was always feeding route and not P2P, therefore this is probably mutti decision not to cannibalize FRA and MUC.
DeleteThere is a daily train service Zagreb - Ljubljana - Vienna. Flixbus goes 10x a day for 20-30eur as well.
DeleteITA has not flown to Zagreb, nor did AlItalia for a long time when they were still around. I am amazed there's so little in terms of connections between Zagreb and Italy, considering the two countries are neighbours and there's massive commercial, cultural and economic links between the two countries. I find it odd that not a single flight by any of the Italian airlines to Zagreb, also odd considering quite a few Italians are now moving to Croatia for work and opportunities.
Delete"proximity is not one of them" .. which else?
DeleteBTW VIE-GRZ//VIE-KLU are not under PSO.
Flixbus Ljubljana- Vienna airport is only twice per day. (Not ten days per day). Price 25 to 35€. And bus is.more or less always full before Ljubljana
DeleteI can not speak for other cities , but Italy from SKP is hugely covered by WizzAir. Most of the travelers are emigrants and flights to Rome, Milano and Venice have very good load
Delete@14.36 lmao you have no clue what is a network carrier and a point to point carrier ...
DeleteCrazy that ITA flies nowhere in ex-Yu. The 5 flights per year to Split are barely count.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteAnd ITA has cancelled even those in 2025, replacing Split with Zante
DeleteJU-AZ codeshare will probably end.
ReplyDeleteLH is still not majority owner so similarly to Air Europa IAG 10% ownership! Until majority, they are still independent!
Delete^^^
DeleteLOL, sure they are "independent"
LH will run the airline so goodbye JU codeshare!
DeleteSAS is stil codesharing/interlining with the LH group (at least for SKP)
Delete@anon 11:52
DeleteOn which routes do you see the codeshare between SK and LH? I can't find any departures on the SK website between CPH-SKP and ARN-SKP.
CPH-SKP: via ZRH "Trafikeras av SAS LINK och SWISS International Air Lines"
DeleteSKP-CPH: via FRA "Trafikeras av Lufthansa och SAS LINK"
same for ARN
just go on Boka Flyg
dont think its codeshare but you can by a ticket
DeleteMaybe after 35 years this makes Croatia Airlines consider Zagreb-Rome nonstop.
ReplyDeleteDon't count on it. If anything, this means they will fly no where else in Italy other than Rome. They will just codeshare with ITA.
DeleteI'm not. They are useless.
DeleteMoL should send thank you letter to Jasmin Bajic for giving them p2p market from ZAG. This makes Ryanair shareholders extremely happy! OU a220 PW1000 still holding?
DeleteI remember when Alitalia had three daily flights to Belgrade. This was the time when they were developing the Malpensa hub, and those flights offered convenient connections elsewhere in Europe.
ReplyDeleteNo longer necessary
DeleteI remember it too as I was flying via MXP quite often.
DeleteUsually they were flying with E145 (which I personally did not like) or E175 that was like a space ship comparing to E145.
At that time it was a good alternative to the Munich hub Lufthansa developed. Lufthansa also offered three daily flights to Munich.
DeleteI think back then they had up to 4 daily flights to BEG. Three were to Milan with the E45 and 5 weekly to Rome on the MD-82.
DeleteOnce they terminated MXP flights, Lufthansa rushed in with additional flights to Munich. I think back then they introduce night flights.
Before that, I think Alitalia was the main transfer carrier out of BEG. Later on Lufthansa jumped in and they only gotten stronger and stronger.
ITA can be a good option for the Iberian peninsula since there is growing demand from BEG. I hope they consider overnight flights as well.
^ and it will offer it next summer again.
DeleteLet's hope those overnight MUC flights actually happen. They were supposed to resume last year but didn't.
DeleteMUC is a much better airport to transfer at than FRA.
They didn't resume because Lufthansa was forced to ground 40 A320s because of engines with 300 day turnaround time.
DeleteBoth Lufthansa and Alitalia had three daily flights each to their Munich and Malpensa hubs. I was flying a lot, and always had the choice between the two early morning flights, though the Lufthansa flight had a slightly better (more convenient) time as they were a bit later in the morning.
DeleteThey used to fly so much because national airline at the time had 20-30 low frequency destinations. It now has 90 in summer.
DeleteFrom what I know Lufthansa had the overnight flight to FRA back then. If my memory serves me well, MUC got it once AZ started scaling back.
DeleteAnon 09.13
That's doesn't change the fact that they put them on sale and then removed them. They are still struggling with NEO reliability so we will have to see what happens in the end.
^ I'm just saying the flights were removed along with 100s others and they said it was because of neo engine problems.
DeleteLH still has overnight flight to FRA.
DeleteAnon 09.39
DeleteYes, I understand that but what I am saying is that engine issues are still there. That is why I would advise caution in this situation. These increases were supposed to start at the beginning of the summer season but I see that now they were pushed to May.
Anon 09.47
Indeed. Some years ago Swiss had them as well. Shame they never brought them back. They lasted for a very short time.
MXP was very good for BEG flights in mid 2000s. Took it many times to JFK with E170 and B777-200ER.
DeleteLove those times.
DeleteI think ITA also failed in Sofia. They don't seem to be competitive.
ReplyDeleteIt's just the same dysfunctional Alitalia with a new shiny cover.
DeleteSOF has flights to FCO with Bulgaria Air, Wizz Air AND ITA.
DeleteIt also has flights to Ciampino with FR. So what are you talking about?
What do those other airlines have to do with ITA failing in Sofia.
DeleteThe gastarbeiter market which is the vast majority of traffic between Bulgaria and Italy is already well served.
DeletePlus there are very few Bulgarian emigrants in North America that AZ would be interested in connecting them via FCO.
It didnt fail, the route is performing just fine. It has just been suspended for a month in the dead period of the year
DeleteIf it suspended flights while others haven't, while being able to rely on transfer opportunities too, then it is obviously not doing that great.
DeleteThere aren't many transfer opportunities from Bulgaria for AZ network that already do not have a direct LCC option. As it was mentioned few Bulgarian diaspora exists in the US or Canada.
Delete@Anon 11:06
DeleteIts doing just fine since ITA doesnt pursue transfers from SOF at the moment. Not to mention ITA's "offering" of transfers is, within Europe at least, very, very humble
Last time paid 80 euro one way for SOF-FCO with a very convenient departing time (just after I finish work) which BG air does not offer, airplane was at least 90% full. Don't know if the route generates cash but works well for me
DeleteI honestly don't get why Lufthansa would pick ITA for Eastern Europe transfers. Didn't Austrian used to specialize in this?
ReplyDeleteNot just Austrian Airlines but their hub in MUC also put a lot of focus on eastern Europe. Seems like they are building a wall against their competition.
DeleteLO seems to be their biggest problem right now.
Core LHG markets still haven't fully recovered from Covid.
DeleteWhile Italy and the rest of the Med. sea countries are growing like crazy.
So Alitalia was the only available large airline foe sale in a growing market.
MUC has no focus on East Europe compared to Austrian network, FRA, and Memmingen
Deletebut @9.09 has a good point.
LH wants to grow and if they can steer pax flows via FCO, especially since YU is so close to FCO, they more capacity for Scandinavia or other places to route over FRA, MUC.
DeleteAZ is a must in YU. Italy is our big brother neighbour and I would love to see the AZ birds at YU airports. The 221 and 223s would fit perfect for our region.
If they terminate the code-share with JU and launch their own BEG flights, then Air Serbia must respond by increasing BEG-FCO to double daily with the E95 with the A319 operating on Thursday, Friday and Sunday in the afternoon.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteBy flying to 9 Italian destinations next summer Air Serbia already keeps very dominant position on traffic from Belgrade.
DeleteHowever, I agree that JU needs to react if AZ cancel code share with them.
Well, Italy is a large country and Rome is a massive market on its own. If they terminate their codeshare then they should consider boosting destinations where transfers used to go via Rome and ITA. These include Catania, Palermo, Bologna etc.
DeleteIn my opinion, and regardless of what ITA does, I think FCO has to be double daily so as to improve overall connectivity in BEG. You simply can't be competitive in such a market with less than double daily flights. Especially not when you have Lufthansa, Aegean, Turkish Airlines... breathing down your neck.
JU needs to increase flights to FCO and launch MUC. It can't just keep letting LHG eating its lunch.
DeleteJU flies to 9 cities in Italy as of next summer and 9 cities in Germany. I would hardly call it LHG eating its lunch. But some people here fail to use common sense.
DeleteNot a fanboy but you're 100% right, that's impressive number of destinations for Air Serbia on both markets. They must tackle the winter though.
DeleteMUC is a market JU must fly to, regardless where you want to have lunch.
DeleteFor a total of 7-8 flights weekly like in FRA? They must evaluate if they will lose more weekly frequencies to their existing destinations with possible LH's response.
DeleteJU flies 10 weekly to Frankfurt. Not 7-8 weekly like you wrote.
DeleteOK, sorry, I think it would be less to MUC since FRA region is more packed with Serbian diaspora and JU has to rely on p2p here. I'm not sure but I think there are no Hahn flights from Belgrade now, unlike to Memmingen.
Delete@Nemjeee
DeleteIf ITA opens BEG, JU increasing FCO to 2 daily wouldnt be a good choice.
ITA will operate the route either with the small A221 or the more efficient/pax A320neo. Either way, JU's chances are slim with succeding with a double daily, even with the E195 on the route, and what will likely be a resurgent Wizz in 2025.
The Jubilee in 2025 could temporarily help in boosting traffic, but from 2026. onwards someone will have to buckle.
And with ITA finally being due to become profitable, with the incoming support of LH, and Wizz recently basing its 12th aircraft at FCO, that someone will unfortunately likely be JU, which will go back to 7-10pw
You know JU has operated FCO alongside Alitalia for many years. I find it funny how everyone instantly thinks it will be Air Serbia that "buckles" yet it was Alitalia and British that buckled
DeleteOf course, but times have changed. And with the alliance shift as well, and a ULCC on the route (i.e. not Easyjet), i doubt there will be room on the route for all three in such a high capacity.
DeleteIf i had to predict, i think they will settle on 7pw flights on all three airlines by 2027ish, on a mix of A220s, E195s and A321neos (AZ/EN/JU/W6)
People calling for JU to compete with LH are out of touch with reality.
Deleteanonymous13:47 Agree totally. People ack as JU is on level of Turkish, LH, ITA and others big players
DeleteWell LH has not defeated JU in FRA and JU beat their stepchild EW on STR-BEG.
DeleteSome of you think Lufthansa is impossible to defeat.
JU has a great timetable if you are flying from Belgrade.
Crazy how Alitalia/ITA just vanished from the region.
ReplyDeleteIt's called mismanagement.
DeleteIt's called a financial crisis. Italy never recovered.
DeleteItaly last year had a GDP of 2.13 trillion euros. They are fine.
DeleteThey don't care that much about trillions. Somehow they are confident the hapinness is not in the figures.
Delete^
DeleteHappiness is really not in the figures! They are right.
They had debt 1.6 times GDP. They are broke as France and Greece.
DeleteAZ should connect all ex YU like TK serves all ex YU
ReplyDeleteHope to see them in LJU ZAG BEG SKP PRN TGD DBV SJJ, besides SPU
not even LH does that
DeleteITA operated by Air Dolomiti would make sense in the region considering their fleet is suited for these markets.
ReplyDeleteSkyAlps will also likely fly to certain regional destinations, as since its also involved in negotiations with ITA
DeleteCould we see this expansion already next summer or later?
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed
DeleteMaybe they will start Zagreb via Split 😅
ReplyDeleteNo they will start ZAG via MXP
DeleteLet's remember that joke made at the beginning of The White Lotus s2... transferring in Rome? Of course your bags got lost. We will deliver them to your room if they ever come. Do you believe in miracles? Why didn't you transfer in Munich?
ReplyDeleteThey really did that. Almost everytime my luggage from US were late and delivered two or three days later.
DeleteBecause they are so expensive, Even flights to Albania where its estimatet almost 800 thousand Albanians in Italy is only seasonal from Rome. Other airlines like Wizz and Ryanair have daily flights as Milan to Tirana that is offered with 3-4 flights pr day. Nothing have changed from Alitalia to ITA Airways just the emblem. They are still expensive and still running same concept as Alitalia did, Cant really understand why Lufthansa put a bid on them
ReplyDeleteThat is because Albanian travelers are smart shoppers and are not willing to pay 50% more for flights shorter than 90 minutes.
DeleteI remember transfering to Spain via FCO at least 10 times - the best thing was convinient transfer time since JU had (or has) arrival next to the gates which were used for Alitalia departures. Could be coincidence but it was always quick and smooth (once we arrived late for Madrid transfer but the next one was after some 3-4 hours and it was handled much better than I would expect from this company).
ReplyDeleteSlightly off topic but I have to ask - What is is the future of LOT after this LH acquisition? To be acquired by LH, too?
ReplyDeleteHow are the two even related?
DeleteFor example, nowadays you can't transfer from Podgorica to Toronto via FCO, but you can via WAW. Under similar financial conditions, the Balkans would pick transferring via FCO for the western destinations.
DeleteSo? It is added competition. Why do you instantly think LOT will fail and ITA will succeed and then magically LOT will be acquired by Lufthansa. Doesn't make much sense. Let me remind you that Lufthansa has already failed once in Italy with Lufthansa Italia.
DeleteI don't think so, I am not original poster. It's just that LOT will have one more battle to fight and they already fight many at their home market.
DeletePolish government would never let LOZT been taken over by LH or any other foreign competitor.
DeleteEspecially now that the airline is profitable and expanding.
Poland is the biggest net budget user while Germany is biggest net budget contributor in EU. So we will see about that.
DeleteStupid that LO and TK are even in Star Alliance. Major LH competitors.
Delete@Anon 11:02
DeleteThat makes the Poles smart!
I agree, they are the smartest. Unless there is the price attached to it that we don't know about. And I would be surprised the Germans didn't attach that price.
Delete@11:22 you really need to inform yourself better on how the EU budget is allocated and how contributions are calculated.
DeleteSure, will do it tomorrow.
Delete1. I did not say it will happen, I said it *might* happen and asked for a civilized opinion from technical, operational, financial and political point of view.
Delete2. I am glad to see there are people here who understand that EU Commission is far from principles of economy when it comes to politics and especially geopolitics.
The key markets for LO are first and foremost Polish regional airports, Baltics and Ukraine. Many ex-Yu routes like TIA and SJJ were started just to compensate for the loss of the Ukrainian market. So more competition in ex-Yu from LHG should not be such a big problem for LO. The LO's capacity on the ex-Yu market shows only very moderate growth with frequences basically stagnant, but a slightly bigger equipment resulting from gradual removal from the fleet of E75. With stagnant number of long-haul aircraft in LO bigger and bigger % of pax on long-haul flights are O&D, which is good financially for LO, but eases pressure on getting transfer pax. For this reason LO cancelled for example PRN, which basically saw only transfers without O&D.
DeleteSince when is TIA ex Yu route ?
DeleteITA closed its base at Malpensa and moved its foight to Linate, so unfortunatly we will not see flights from Milan to ex-yu. They use slot for more popular destination as Frnakfurt, London City etc.
ReplyDeleteBut hopefully they will start Rome BEG and other destination. They are not in crisis die that just this year they launched so many new destinations Bangkok, Tokyo, Dubai, plans for Muscat plus they have already good developed network for the US. And they plans are more than comfortable and they have nice service
They're forced to give up the slots at Milan Linate actually, which Easy Jet just picked up. Same goes for Rome Fiumicino, Easy Jet got those slots too, despite not really wanting them.
DeleteMinimal lost for them and for easyjet limited destination from Linate Germany, Belgium and one more. Because Lufthansa and AirDolomiti have strong presence at airports. But we can see idea behind Lufthansa to make a major hub in southern Europe due that they could not fight iberia, tap or ita and markets are huge. Especially for American tourists
DeleteThe loss from LIN slots will be minimal, since ITA has an excess anyway. A majority of its routes from LIN are lossmaking national routes that are maintained only to preserve slot rights.
DeleteITA estimates that the slots they will give to easyjet account for only around 1.5% of income at LIN
@Ivan same game with Eurowings in Germany
DeleteWould be surprised if they cut more in future due to Milan distance from Fra and Muc. They will look to focus more on Rome for sure
Deletethe embraers from Dolomiti are perfect for it
ReplyDeleteITA will not only focus on North America, but also to South America and Africa. Which is interesting. Plus the layover in Fiumicino is great. The airport is very nice and well menaged.
ReplyDeleteexaclty, would be good connection point plus let's faced Italian aiports in this case Fiumicino is much better than any in Germany.
DeleteLets see if Fraport has some good deal with LH group also to be connected with FCO and MXP out of LJU.
ReplyDeleteNo MXP, ITA left MXP completely.
DeleteHopefully to Sarajevo!
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting how the "experts" in the European Commission find all kinds of competitive issues when little peanuts like Adria or Croatia need a little state aid but there is no monopoly concern at all when the same company controls the biggest share of air market (and especially of the transfer market) in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy at the same time. Like, half of a time zone width sector smack across the middle of Europe. No monopoly concern at all
ReplyDeleteWhen you realize that there no free market for everyone in Europe everything is clear. You need to be big investor for that.
DeleteEuroCommission shady AF
Deleteso they are indeed slowly, but surely walking toward a goal EU has set years ago - to have only 4 legacy carriers and 3-4 LLC. The rest will be peanuts
ReplyDelete