Good News - Lufthansa Growth
FT.com Article
Why are BA not planning to grow more aggressively on business routes within Europe - they too should be planning a similar venture asap
Lufthansa plans network from Milan
By Kevin Done in London
Published: September 11 2008 19:49 | Last updated: September 11 2008 19:49
Lufthansa is moving aggressively into the north Italian market to take advantage of the parlous state of Alitalia.
The heavily loss-making Italian airline was locked in talks with the government, trades unions and potential investors about the terms for a last-ditch rescue as its operations were hit again by cancellations and industrial action.
The German flag carrier said it was planning to base six Airbus A319 short-haul jets at Milan’s Malpensa airport to launch a network of direct point-to-point services between Milan and leading European cities.
The move is the first by the German group to establish a base outside its national market to serve other countries rather than to feed passenger traffic into its main hubs at Frankfurt and Munich.
Lufthansa said it would begin flights in February from Malpensa to Barcelona, Brussels, Budapest, Bucharest, Madrid and Paris. It was planning to add flights from Milan to London and Lisbon from the summer season next year.
Karl Ulrich Garnadt, a director of Lufthansa’s passenger airline division, said the group would offer Italian customers a “reliable” service from Milan.
“The catchment area around Milan Malpensa stretches to the south of Switzerland and economically is one of the most important regions in Europe,” he said.
Lufthansa said the Milan-based aircraft would be operated by its Italian subsidiary Air Dolomiti, which hitherto has largely acted as a feeder airline into the group’s Munich hub.
The German group has enlarged its ambitions from its previous plan to move into Malpensa with a number of locally-based Embraer regional jets.
As the Alitalia operation shrinks amid restructuring and mounting losses, several of Europe’s strongest carriers including Air France-KLM, EasyJet and Ryanair are increasing their operations in Italy to take advantage of the vacuum.
EasyJet, the UK low-cost carrier, which opened a base at Milan Malpensa in March 2006, is increasing its presence from 11 to 15 Airbus A319s by the end of the year.
Its Milan network already includes several domestic Italian routes, but it recently announced it would begin a four times daily service between Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino from November, challenging the Italian carriers Alitalia and Air One on the biggest and most lucrative domestic Italian air route.
Ryanair, the leading European low-cost carrier, which has three operating bases in Italy at Rome Ciampino, Pisa and Milan Bergamo, recently announced plans to add two more at Bologna and Forli.
The Irish carrier will start flying seven routes into Bologna from the end of October. It is establishing the operating base at the airport in June 2010 with two aircraft, rising to five by 2012, when it forecasts it will be handling 25 routes and 2m passengers through the city.
A smaller base, with only one aircraft, will be established at nearby Forli next March.