Lufthansa Tightens Its Grip on Southern Europe

The Italy question has finally been answered. On 1 April, ITA Airways officially joined Star Alliance, completing

the most visible stage of its absorption into the Lufthansa Group and drawing a definitive line under one of European aviation's longest-running sagas.

The ceremony at Rome Fiumicino was brief by design. Joerg Eberhart, ITA's chief executive, stood alongside Lufthansa Group's chief commercial officer Dieter Vranckx and Star Alliance chief executive Theo Panagiotoulias for an event that was less a celebration than a ratification. The integration, Vranckx noted, had taken just 18 months, compared with a decade for Swiss and seven years for Austrian Airlines. The speed was the story.

Lufthansa acquired a 41% stake in ITA in January 2025, with options to increase its holding to 90 per cent by 2027 and full ownership thereafter. The Commission approved the deal in mid-2024, on the condition that slots at Italian airports were released to competing carriers. What Brussels gave with one hand, it constrained with the other, and rivals, including easyJet, moved quickly to take up capacity at Fiumicino.

For Lufthansa, the prize is strategic. ITA adds more than 350 daily flights to the Star Alliance network and brings access to Rome as a hub for routes into Africa and Latin America, geographies where the German group has historically been underweight. ITA posted a profit of 209 million euros in 2025, contributing 90 million euros to Lufthansa Group's full-year results, a trajectory that will bolster the case for full consolidation.

The wider implications for European aviation are pointed. With Air France-KLM pursuing SAS and Lufthansa now firmly anchored in Rome and Milan, the consolidation of the continent's network carriers is accelerating. The question is no longer whether the map will be redrawn, but how much room will be left for anyone else.