Fewer intercontinental routes, more competition, less revenue and fewer direct flights to the United States. These would be the effects on the Italian air transport market of the sacrifices requested by Brussels to authorize the marriage between the flag carrier ITA Airways and the Lufthansa aviation group. A situation illustrated in the recent meeting, which took place on Friday 19 April 2024, between the managers and lawyers of the German airline and the antitrust technicians.

It emerges from an analysis conducted by the Italian newspaper "Il Corriere della Sera", which cites as sources some sector experts familiar with the matter. In recent days, ITA and Lufthansa had presented 200 pages of corrective measures to respond to the concerns of the European Competition Commission, led by Margrethe Vestager, which is evaluating Lufthansa's 325 million euros offer to acquire 41% of capital of ITA. To avoid the creation of monopolies, the two airlines are willing to: cede a substantial number of airport slots at Milan-Linate; make sacrifices on intercontinental connections; but no remedy on intra-European flights.

There are four negative effects of the remedies requested by Brussels: the reduction of direct transatlantic flights; the increase in flights with stopovers on the Italy-United States and Italy-Canada routes; the entry of non-European airlines on direct Italy-USA routes; the consequent loss of millions of Euros in profits for ITA due to the movement of customers to other companies' airport hubs.

On the same topic, see also the article published by AVIONEWS.