Lufthansa Group Acquires Majority (90%) Stake In Italy’s ITA Airways

In early 2025, we saw Lufthansa Group acquire a 41% stake in ITA Airways, the national airline of Italy (formerly known as Alitalia). We knew that Lufthansa Group had the option to acquire a majority stake in the airline after some amount of time, and that’s now happening.

Lufthansa Group increases ITA ownership stake to 90%

Lufthansa Group is exercising its option to acquire a majority stake in ITA Airways, increasing its stake by 49%, from 41% to 90%. This transaction will happen in June 2026, at the previously agreed upon price of 325 million euros.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, primarily from the European Commission and the US Department of Justice, and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. At that point, ITA Airways will be fully integrated into the Lufthansa Group, both organizationally and financially, with the Italian government just maintaining a 10% stake.

Here’s what Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr had to say about this development:

“Following the acquisition of the first 41 percent stake in ITA Airways last year, we promised the fastest airline integration in our history. We aimed to complete all major integration steps into the Lufthansa Group within just 18 months.”

“We have not only kept this promise. We were even faster: All customer-facing interfaces are already integrated today—with the exception of North Atlantic flights, where, as is well known, regulatory approval for our merger is still pending.”

“Passengers already experience ITA Airways as an integrated part of the Lufthansa Group. With unified booking, sales, and fare systems, the Miles and More frequent flyer program, Star Alliance membership, and access to our global network of premium lounges.”

“Integration is also progressing in the cargo business. Since last year, Lufthansa Cargo has been marketing ITA Airways’ cargo capacity, which alone corresponds to the additional capacity of three Boeing 777 freighters. In light of this success story, we decided to exercise our option to acquire an additional 49 percent stake as early as June of this year.”

This was expected, has limited implications

When the Lufthansa Group and ITA Airways deal was announced, the plan all along was for the German airline group to eventually own a majority stake in ITA Airways.

At this point, the implications of this are fairly limited. Strategically, ITA Airways is already acting like a full Lufthansa Group carrier — it has joined the Star Alliance, adopted Miles & More as its loyalty program, etc.

Strategically, the one remaining thing is to get ITA Airways into some of the Lufthansa Group’s joint ventures, like the transatlantic joint venture that also includes United and Air Canada. That does require regulatory approval, and in theory, might require some concessions.

When it does come time for the regulatory review process in the United States, I do hope a competing airline objects to ITA Airways joining the Star Alliance joint venture, just to troll United CEO Scott Kirby. After all, he claims we have a trade imbalance with foreign airlines, and we don’t want more power going to major foreign carriers, right? 😉 Did I get that narrative right, or does that only apply if there’s upside for United?

Bottom line

Lufthansa Group is increasing its stake in ITA Airways from 41% to 90%, something that has been in the works for a long time. The deal will happen in June 2026, but it’s expected that it’ll take until early 2027 for regulatory approval to be finalized.

At this point, ITA Airways is already pretty nicely integrated into Lufthansa Group, so I’d expect fairly limited implications for consumers.

What do you make of Lufthansa Group upping its stake in ITA Airways?