Lufthansa Group has reached an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance to acquire a 41 percent stake in Italian national carrier ITA Airways for €325 million, the German company announced Thursday.
The agreement includes an option for Lufthansa to acquire all remaining shares at a later date. As part of the agreement, the MEF also has committed to a capital increase of €250 million into ITA. The Italian airline will become the fifth network carrier in Lufthansa Group’s portfolio, which includes Lufthansa, Austrian Airways, Swiss and Brussels Airlines. It also owns the Eurowings subsidiary.
ITA, headquartered in Rome, was founded in November 2020 and has approximately 4,000 employees, according to Lufthansa. Its fleet includes 66 Airbus aircraft, and the carrier currently serves 64 destinations: 21 domestic and 43 international. ITA will remain a standalone airline with its own management and brand identity.
Lufthansa also plans to extend the intermodal transport for feeder traffic within Italy. It signed a memorandum of understanding with the Italian state railroad company Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. last February, with the aim to increasingly transport passengers in Italy with rail connections to and from their respective flight connections at various Italian airports. Lufthansa already operates similar programs with Deutsche Bahn, Austrian ÖBB and Swiss Federal Railways, according to the company.
