Lufthansa Italia

Foundation

On 28 April 2008 Lufthansa announced plans to launch intra-European flights out of Milan–Malpensa Airport using six Embraer 195 aircraft made available by its subsidiary Air Dolomiti. Instead of the originally planned Air Dolomiti operations the new brand Lufthansa Italia was announced on 26 November 2008. The subsidiary was established to allow Lufthansa to better tap into the lucrative North Italian market that was all but abandoned by Alitalia during a series of cutbacks. Operations started on 2 February 2009 to exclusively international destinations using Airbus A319-100. The airline's on board cuisine was aimed towards the Italian market, with Italian foods and drinks. For example, in business class, Italian espresso coffee was served. On March 4th, the opening of the first three domestic routes to Rome, Naples and Bari was announced.

Mixed results

On February 16, 2010, the airline discontinued the route to Rome-Fiumicino due to passenger numbers not meeting expectations. To compensate for the closure of the routes to Brussels and Rome, three new destinations became operational on March 28, while three seasonal routes were inaugurated the following summer. On July 21, Lufthansa Italia announced two new destinations: Catania and Prague, which would be opened coinciding with the 2010/2011 winter season. However, on September 3, Catania was removed, and Bucharest became a seasonal destination. Instead, the route to Naples (initially scheduled twice daily) was increased to three daily frequencies.

Shutdown

On 23 July 2011, German Lufthansa issued a press release announcing that it would stop all Lufthansa Italia operations by 29 October 2011 as it had been proven too difficult to run the Italian-based operations economically. As a replacement, the Lufthansa Group increased their flights from Italian destinations to their German hubs of Frankfurt and Munich instead. The last scheduled flight of Lufthansa Italia, from Palermo to Milan-Malpensa, occurred on 29 October 2011. The former Lufthansa Italia aircraft were transferred to other Lufthansa Group airlines.

Destinations

The following cities were served by Lufthansa Italia prior to its shutdown:

Fleet

All Lufthansa Italia aircraft were given names of Italian cities, such as "Bologna" and "Varese", and were painted in a slightly modified Lufthansa livery while retaining the German registrations.