Not too much capital investment and still gaining a foothold in Italy - for Deutsche Lufthansa, the plan to approach the airline Ita together with the container ship and cruise line MSC seems extremely attractive.

Lufthansa had always expressed an interest in doing business in Italy.

Timo Kotowski

Editor in Business.

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In any case, the country is the largest European foreign market in which the group does not have a subsidiary, as it does in Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.

However, despite massive advertising from Italy, the group always refused to get involved with the long-suffering Ita predecessor Alitalia.

The financial risk was too great.

That has changed with the advance of the Swiss-Italian shipping company, which has its headquarters in Geneva without access to the sea.

MSC has expressed an interest in acquiring a majority stake in Ita.

The airline, which is still state-owned, has been repositioned, relieved by Alitalia legacy issues, and the fleet has shrunk.

According to FAZ information for Europe's largest aviation group, MSC's interest in reaching out to Ita with Lufthansa as a partner is still so fresh that Lufthansa headquarters are still intensively discussing how to proceed.

Lufthansa participation possible

On Tuesday, it should go directly to the agenda of the board of directors. It is no longer excluded that Lufthansa will take over Ita shares in the first step. But nothing is decided. MSC and Lufthansa now want a 90-day period during which the two groups will exclusively examine Ita books and explore possible hurdles. A Lufthansa spokesman said on Tuesday that this period would be used to examine all options, including participation.

Meanwhile, Ita President Alfredo Altavilla can hardly be stopped in his euphoria.

The industrial logic of the offer was "very convincing", he told the "Handelsblatt", praising the "strategic skills" of the heads of Lufthansa and MSC, Carsten Spohr and Gianluigi Aponte.

At the same time, he announced that Ita would leave the Skyteam aviation alliance around Air France-KLM after the conclusion of the negotiations and turn to the Star Alliance around Lufthansa, and then also want to become part of the Lufthansa frequent flyer program Miles & More.

Italy is an ongoing topic for Lufthansa.

In 2008, the group even created a subsidiary, Lufthansa Italia, to capitalize on Alitalia's chronic weakness.

But in 2011 the project was abandoned.

"In view of the fall in prices in continental traffic", it was "extremely difficult" to establish a profitable network with European routes under a separate brand in Italy, said the then CEO Christoph Franz, explaining the change.

Ryanair's role in Italy

After that, the group resisted repeated solicitations from Italy to invest in Alitalia.

At the same time, Lufthansa always expressed an interest in doing business with a streamlined “New Alitalia”.

With the new Ita, which has been flying since autumn 2021, many of what was once meant by “New Alitalia” can clearly be seen at the Lufthansa headquarters in Frankfurt.