Lufthansa Italia S.p.A. was an Italian

airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...

and a wholly owned subsidiary of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Lufthansa Group Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding ...

headquartered in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

and based at

Milan–Malpensa Airport Milan Malpensa Airport is the largest international airport in northern Italy, serving Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria, as well as the Swiss Canton of Ticino. The airport is northwest of Milan, next to the Ticino river dividing Lombardy and Pie ...

. Operations started on 2 February 2009 and ceased on 29 October 2011.Lufthansa press release: "Lufthansa launches new Lufthansa Italia brand"

History

Foundation

On 28 April 2008 Lufthansa announced plans to commence intra-European flights out of

using six

Embraer 195 The Embraer E-Jet family is a series of four-abreast narrow-body short- to medium-range twin-engine jet airliners designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer. The E-Jet was designed as a complement to the preceding E ...

aircraft from its subsidiary

Air Dolomiti Air Dolomiti S.p.A. is an Italian regional airline with its head office in Dossobuono, Villafranca di Verona, Italy, operating base at Verona Villafranca Airport and focus cities at Munich Airport and Frankfurt Airport in Germany. Operations started on 2 February 2009 using the larger

Airbus A319-100 The Airbus A319 is a member of the Airbus A320 family of short- to medium-range, narrow-body, commercial passenger twin-engine jet airliners manufactured by Airbus. The A319 carries 124 to 156 passengers and has a maximum range of . Final assem ...

. The new subsidiary was established to allow Lufthansa to better tap into the lucrative North Italian market that was all but abandoned by

Alitalia Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A., operating as Alitalia (), was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. The ai ...

during a series of cutbacks. The airline's on board cuisine was aimed towards the Italian market, with Italian foods and drinks. For example, in business class, Italian espresso was served.

Shutdown

On 23 July 2011, Lufthansa reported in a press release that it would stop all Lufthansa Italia operations by 29 October 2011 as it had been proven too difficult to operate the Italian-based operations economically. As a replacement, the Lufthansa Group increased their flights from Italian destinations to their German hubs in Frankfurt and Munich instead. The last scheduled flight of Lufthansa Italia was LH3627 on 29 October 2011, which landed at 16:35, coming from Palermo to Milan-Malpensa, which was flown on the Airbus A319-100 with the registration D-AKNJ. The former Lufthansa Italia aircraft have been transferred back to other Lufthansa Group airlines.

Destinations

The following cities were served by Lufthansa Italia prior to its shutdown on 29 October 2011:

Fleet

The Lufthansa Italia fleet consisted of the following aircraft: Five of the airline's aircraft came from Lufthansa subsidiary

Germanwings Germanwings GmbH was a German low-cost airline wholly owned by Lufthansa which operated under the Eurowings brand. It was based in Cologne with hubs at Cologne Bonn Airport, Stuttgart Airport, Hamburg Airport, Berlin Tegel Airport, Munich Airp ...

, and the other five came from Lufthansa's base at Munich. All aircraft were given names of Italian cities, such as 'Bologna' and 'Varese', and were painted in a modified Lufthansa livery. The aircraft retained their German registrations. In 2010, the airline planned to replace one A319 with two Airbus A320, but this never occurred. Two of the five daily flights to London were operated by a British Midland International Airbus A321 in a 31/118 configuration.

References

External links

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German version
Italian version linked from English page {{Portalbar, Italy, Companies, Aviation Lufthansa Defunct airlines of Italy Airlines established in 2008 Airlines disestablished in 2011 Italian companies established in 2008 2011 disestablishments in Italy Former Star Alliance affiliate members