Seat Air Dolomiti (Photo: Jan Gruber).
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Lufthansa Group withdraws from the Italian domestic market again

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The Lufthansa Group is withdrawing – at least for the time being – from domestic business in Italy. For the time being, Air Dolomiti will no longer fly within Italy, but will concentrate on its bases in Frankfurt am Main and Munich.

Lufthansa tried several times to establish itself within Italy with extremely modest success. The trip as Lufthansa Italia from Milan-Malpensa with aircraft operated by Germanwings was a financial disaster. The acquisition of the regional airline Air Dolomiti, founded in 1991, gradually developed in a different direction than originally planned. The company was a small regional carrier that traveled almost exclusively within Italy.

The company has been cooperating with Lufthansa since 1994 and was completely taken over by it nine years later. Nevertheless, you are still in the air under your own flight numbers and with your own livery. The inner-Italian route network gradually shrank. In the end there were only a few routes left. The focus has long been on ACMI services for Lufthansa from Frankfurt and Munich. Sometimes they also fly under their own flight numbers, but always with the codeshare of the parent company.

In an interview with Travel Quotidiano, Air Dolomiti boss Steffen Harbarth confirmed that the carrier he manages will in future only fly from the bases in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. The routes within Italy are abandoned. In the meantime, the sale of tickets on the affected routes has also been discontinued. The Lufthansa Group is once again withdrawing completely, and at least for the time being, from domestic business in Italy.

Like its sister company Lufthansa Cityline, Air Dolomiti will in future focus on feeder services for the parent company. In contrast to Cityline, these are carried out both as wet leases for Lufthansa and under their own flight numbers with Kranich codeshare. Air Dolomiti controls the airports in Austria according to plan Graz (from Munich), Innsbruck and Linz (each from Frankfurt am Main). Occasionally, machines are used in Vienna, but not regularly. The Air Dolomiti fleet currently consists of 17 Embraer 195s to make the successor model E2 palatable for the Italian offshoot. However, an order has not yet been placed.

Just a few days ago, Aviation.Direct presented the differences between the economy class services of Austrian Airlines and its sister company Air Dolomiti as part of a product comparison. More on that in the report with this link.

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