Italy had been trying to fix its national airline for as long as anyone can remember.
The answer, it turns out, was to stop trying and start afresh. In 2021, a brand-new carrier, ITA Airways, replaced the long-ailing Alitalia, while sporting not only an eye-catching bright blue livery but also a clean balance sheet, too.
The new Italian carrier soon attracted the interest of the Lufthansa Group, keen to add a Mediterranean dimension to its portfolio of airlines.
In 2025, the German group invested €325 million to get 41% of the new Italian airline, plus the option to increase its stake to 90% for another €325 million by June 2028.
In May 2026, Lufthansa Group confirmed it was going to exercise this option, which will lead it to taking sole control of ITA Airways, continuing to bring the carrier closer into its orbit.
Steering ITA Airways through these momentous changes is CEO Jörg Eberhart, who has been in the role since the moment Lufthansa formalized its investment in January 2025.
A Lufthansa Group insider, Eberhart knows Italy and its airline industry inside out, as he headed the German airline’s other Italian subsidiary, Air Dolomiti, between 2014 and 2021.
Under his watch, ITA Airways achieved what had long eluded Italy’s flag carrier: the airline posted a substantial full-year profit of €209 million for 2025.
AeroTime met with Eberhart on the sidelines of the CAPA Airline Leaders Summit, which took place in Berlin, Germany, on April 22-24, 2026, in order to learn more about the recipe he had applied to achieve this unprecedented result, as well as his plans for the future of the Italian airline.
Integrating closer into the Lufthansa Group
At the time this interview took place, Lufthansa Group was just days away from greenlighting the acquisition of a controlling stake in ITA Airways, and naturally, the conversation gravitated towards the topic of shareholding structure and the future role of the Italian airline within the airline group.
Lufthansa Group has the option to acquire the remaining 10% of ITA Airways that remains in the hands of the Italian state by 2033 at the latest. Eberhart is in no rush for this to happen, though, as he sees the continued engagement of Italian stakeholders as important for the airline.
“I would be much in favor of keeping the government with 10% in ITA Airways as long as possible, but it’s just my opinion. At the end, the decision rests with Lufthansa,” he said, adding that, so far, board members nominated by the Italian government have tended to align with those proposed by Lufthansa (himself included).
“We have a board of five people. Three are nominated by the Italian government, two by Lufthansa, and I am one of them. There is still a certain degree of independence within ITA when it comes to decisions, but many of the proposals we bring forward focus on leveraging synergies. These proposals are also beneficial to ITA itself, which is why the Italian board members vote in favor of them as well.”
Eberhart further highlighted this spirit of collaboration between the airline group and the Italian government:
“We have had a very good collaboration with the government so far,” he said. “What we don’t face is this kind of political impact. It was clear from the beginning, when the government told Lufthansa, ‘You take care of the management, and we want to accompany you on this. We will stay in the company for a certain time, but not forever’. This was a very clear way, and they have stuck to this. We have always found solutions.”
A key aspect of ITA Airways’ closer integration into the Lufthansa Group is the role the airline’s hub at Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO) is expected to play in relation to the group’s other hubs north of the Alps.
Notably, a few years prior to taking the top role at ITA Airways, Eberhart was CEO of Air Dolomiti, a small carrier which has as one of its primary missions to act as a feeder, carrying passengers from northern Italy into Lufthansa’s main hubs at Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC).
Will the direction of these flows change now that Lufthansa Group has another hub at Rome Fiumicino?
“I see both roles as complimentary. Many of the Northern Italian cities, Venice, Milan-Linate, Torino, Bologna, Florence, are also connected to Rome. It all comes down to production cost. If ITA has a low production cost, we might be able to attract this kind of traffic going via Rome. Then there is geography as well. If you start in Venice and want to go to South America, it doesn’t make much sense to go north to Frankfurt and then south again, instead of going via Rome. So, they are complementary.” Eberhart added: “It depends on Lufthansa, how to define the role of each of these hubs. This is a crucial question they have to answer.”
He highlighted the amount of coordination that takes place within the group, as opposed to the real competition with the other large European airline groups.
“Then, of course, there’s the real competition: all these cities [in northern Italy] are connected as well, to Paris, London, Madrid…So, we are, of course, competing with them, we are not fighting each other [within the Lufthansa Group].”
Fleet decisions
ITA Airways was launched with a fleet composed of 52 former Alitalia aircraft. As of May 2026, the Italian carrier operates 108 aircraft (23 widebody and 85 narrowbody), all Airbus, with 74% new generation ones, including A220s (-100s and -300s), A320/A321neo, A330-900neo and A350-900s.
Eberhart is particularly keen to expand the long-haul fleet with at least seven additional widebody aircraft, bringing the total from 23 to 30.
“The growth rate of Rome Fiumicino hub is about 5% per year, which is much more than the average in Europe. But, of course, ITA wants to gain market share at FCO, and that means we have to grow faster than this 5%. That’s why our current plans are to take in additional aircraft within the next four years.”
While ITA Airways currently operates a mix of A330-900neo and A350-900 aircraft, Eberhart is very clear about where his preferences lie: “Hopefully they [the new aircraft] will be A350s. There’s no final decision yet, but if we have the choice between A330-900s and A350-900s, we’d go for the A350s.”
And he elaborated on the reasons for this choice:
“We would rather go for the A350-900s than the A330-900s because the A350-900 is a much more universal aircraft that we can use for many more different routes. It’s also about autonomy, so this aircraft is perfect for us. The strategy is, within 10 years from now, to try to become a purely A350-900 operator for the long range.”
And where does Eberhart plan to get this A350s from?
“We’re talking to Lufthansa, of course. Since Airbus is sold out until 2033, we need to talk to Lufthansa about their current orders, about their order book. There’s some openness from their side to consider allocating them to ITA as well. But this depends again on the execution of the options,” he said, underlining this is the normal procedure within the group.
Other airlines within the Lufthansa Group have also had widebody aircraft assignations from large orders placed by the German company in previous years.
“This central coordination within Lufthansa is happening for all the business units. The decision is always about business cases. If we have good business cases at ITA and we can convince on the basis of cost, on production cost, we might be able to win more capacity. Of course, Lufthansa has to go there, where the business cases work,” he added.
The appeal of ‘Made in Italy’
Speaking at the ITA Airways Star Alliance accession ceremony, on March 31, 2026, Eberhart highlighted several times over the importance of “Italianness,” understood as a certain sense of style, sophistication and “joie de vivre”, as one of the distinctive contributions of ITA Airways to the Lufthansa Group.
And while it is safe to say that pretty much everyone present at that event understood what it meant from a marketing point of view, we didn’t miss the opportunity to ask Eberhart to further elaborate on this concept.
“It’s not easy to quantify that, really. Of course, we have to offer reasonable prices in our competitive environment. If we are out of the market, Italianness will not work. But as long as we are in the market, Italianness works and it’s very attractive. There is an impact [from playing the ‘Made in Italy’ card]. We just don’t know how big it is, but of course, we have to deliver on that. It’s not only about saying it, it’s also about delivering.”
Eberhart also shared that, while tourism and leisure traffic is a big driver of ITA Airways’ business, particularly inbound leisure traffic into Italy, with the US standing out as the airline’s most valuable international market, the carrier has also a strong business market. “This mix is perfect for us. I would say it’s half-and-half” he said of the traffic profile breakdown.
With such promising fundamentals, we asked Eberhart: why did Alitalia struggle for so long financially? What has it changed? What was the secret ingredient here that was missing?
“I think in the past, during the Sixties and Seventies, Alitalia was quite successful,” he said. “It was among the top airlines in Europe. Then, the other airlines were privatised. Lufthansa, for example, was privatised in the Nineties, and so were many of the other carriers around the same time, but Alitalia wasn’t. So, there is a political impact on, let’s say, the choice of management, the choices of routes and so on. Alitalia also had to fulfil this kind of role as an infrastructure provider. But it’s more than that, it’s about mindset change.”
“At the end, the government was convinced it had to privatize the flag carrier. That was the opportunity for Lufthansa Group to step in, and then the private logic works differently. We need a business case in order to invest, we need agility, we need to have free choice of management,” he continued.
“They took 52 aircraft from the old Alitalia and, of course, many employees had previously worked at Alitalia, because you don’t find these people in the market, you need to have these skills. They learned from the mistakes of the past and so they did better for the future. We are still not there. We can still improve to be more agile, more dynamic – to take more, let’s say, pragmatic decisions. We are still a little bit too administrative.”
The old Alitalia brand had something close to national icon status in Italy. In fact, while the airline is no more, the brand is still around. In 2021, even before it started operations, ITA Airways paid €90 million for the right to use the Alitalia brand. And since 2024 its aircraft have been emblazoned with the line ‘Inspired by Alitalia’.
Could the Alitalia brand make a comeback?
“We invested a lot into ITA Airways,” Eberhart said. “It would be wrong to give it up as a brand now. However, the ITA Airways brand is still a bit technical. I think it needs more emotion. We might look into some elements of the Alitalia of the past, of the good part of the past. This legacy is not always negative. There’s a good past of Alitalia that goes back to the Sixties and Seventies. And then there are some strong symbols, like the ‘Timone’ on the back of the fin, the painting, the big A in the national colours [in 1969 Alitalia introduced the big tricolor ‘A’ logo, designed by Landor, which adorned the tail rudder – “timone di coda” in Italian – ed. Note]. This kind of iconic branding might enhance the ITA brand with some elements of the good old times of Alitalia. This is just one idea. I don’t think we will bring back Alitalia as it was in the past.”
To illustrate how much the Alitalia brand still matters in Italy, suffice it to say that the matter was even the object of a legal dispute involving ITA Airways and Aeroitalia, another Italian airline.
The former claimed that the latter had been infringing its intellectual property by using a name and livery that were too similar to Alitalia’s. In 2025, an appeals court in Rome ruled an interim measure in favor of ITA Airways, leading to Aeroitalia changing its corporate brand and painting their aircraft in a new livery as of early 2026.
International Partnerships
ITA Airways is also aiming to develop key markets in the company not just of fellow Lufthansa Group carriers, but also by entering into joint ventures with some of its new Star Alliance partners.
The most important of these is the so-called A++ Joint Venture in the North Atlantic, which is the largest market for the airline outside of Italy.
“The North Atlantic is most important to us. Alitalia was previously in a joint venture, as part of Sky team, but they were always a second-class partner. They were never on the same level. Now the idea is to put ITA Airways on same level, into the joint venture that Lufthansa Group has with Air Canada and United Airlines.”
Eberhart added that, in order to be able to do so, ITA Airways had first to obtain anti-trust immunity from the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
“The sequence is: first Lufthansa obtains majority control of ITA, then the DOJ has to approve the deal giving Lufthansa full control of ITA. Then, the next step is that the Department of Transport (DOT) approves the entry of ITA Airways into the joint venture.”
Eberhart added that there are three other joint ventures (JV) which ITA Airways is interested in joining once it becomes fully integrated with Lufthansa.
One of them is the J+ JV plus in Japan, with All Nippon Airways (ANA); C+ JV in China, which involves Air China, Shenzhen Airlines, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, and SWISS; and the S+ with Singapore Airlines.
The German executive underlined that, at the time of the interview (April 2026), ITA Airways didn’t fly to either China or Singapore. This was not due to lack of interest, though, he stressed.
“We have some disadvantages at the moment going to China, since we can still not overfly Russian airpspace and we have to circumnavigate it, which costs a lot of more time and fuel. The cost of these routes is much higher than for our competitors flying into Italy, so there’s no business case yet. When this situation improves, though, of course we might consider entering these joint ventures as well.”
Despite this obstacle, ITA Airways does fly to Japan, a country in which it may even expand to new destinations.
“We are flying to Tokyo and we might consider even increasing our presence in Japan. We’re looking to go into Osaka at some point within the next five years. This might be an interesting route for us, but this is a plan for the future.”
What are the next milestones for ITA Airways?
“This year, we already took in two more widebody aircraft, so we grew our widebody fleet by almost 10%. We have to digest that. We opened up a new route to Houston (IAH) as well. For us, it is a very big step forward, since this is the first connection ever between Rome and Houston and we are proud of that. We have had a good collaboration with the city of Houston and have many stakeholders over there.”
“We might consider flying into Newark (EWR), since United has one of its hubs there, so the two networks might be linked.”. Houston is already a United stronghold, so we are profiting from that.”
Eberhart also suggested that he sees 2027 as a year of consolidation, during which ITA Airways will try to optimize and materialize synergies, before resuming growth in 2028.
“We are looking to grow another 10% in widebody aircraft. On the narrow body fleet, we hope to bring back into service all those aircraft which are now grounded due to Pratt & Whitney engine issues.” Eberhart said, projecting ahead.
He revealed that, at the time of our interview, ITA Airways had 18 aircraft grounded, A220s, A320s and A321s, due to issues with the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G and PW1500G engines.
“If these aircraft come back, we might have more opportunities to feed Rome, which should then also help with the long-range growth.” he suggested.
Nine of the A321neos operated by ITA Airways are fitted with a three-class cabin featuring full business class suites, premium economy and economy class, a rather sophisticated offering for a narrowbody aircraft. Geopolitics, however, have undermined the business case for these aircraft, explained Eberhart.
“When ITA started this project, it also had in mind some Russian destinations such as St. Petersburg. It’s a short long-range. They also fly to the Middle East, to Riyadh, Jeddah, and to Africa. The original business model was aiming for this kind of destinations. Now, with Russia closed, and with all the Middle East problems, our possibilities are much more limited. So, we might consider what to do with these aircraft. As we have engine issues, we may even take these engines and use them on the aircraft which are fitted with two classes only.”
Navigating a complex competitive environment
Needless to say, the conflict in the Middle East has impacted all airlines through the increase in the price of oil. However, this doesn’t worry Eberhart for now.
“At the moment we are quite well hedged,” he said. “80% of our needs for rest of the year are hedged. It might become a problem, if the crisis goes on – who knows what can happen?”
When it comes to the physical availability of fuel, Eberhart remarked that, in that regard, its location in Rome, near several ports, may be beneficial if airlines face a real scarcity of fuel.
“There are differences. Zurich is not the same as Frankfurt, not the same as Vienna, not the same as Rome. We are close to the sea, close to the ships going to Civitavecchia [the industrial port closest to Rome – ed. Note].” He added, “Fuel sourcing at Lufthansa [Group] is bundled, but of course we can share our respective experiences in order to learn from one another [the other airlines of the Lufthansa Group – ed. Note].”
Eberhart explained that recently, ITA Airways had successfully applied to become a fuel operator too. Technically, it can now manage its own fuel supplies, lessening its dependence from intermediaries if need be.
“ITA is now officially a fuel company in Rome. It puts us in the position of being able to optimize the [price] differential. We can buy oil directly, whether from North Africa, or somewhere else.”
Eberhart appeared also unfazed by the intense competition from low-cost carriers, with all three major European players in this segment – Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air – having a significant presence in Italy.
“There’s a coexistence. Of course, we are facing them and if they become competitors on the same routes, they might take away some point-to-point traffic. But we still have some stability provided by the transfer passengers. We have a stable situation. We had the remedy requirements from the European Commission for Linate Airport, and easyJet is now on the same routes as ITA [in order to authorize Lufthansa’s investment in ITA Airways, the European Commission forced the carrier to give away some of the slots that it had at Milan-Linate airport – Ed. Note]. So, we are facing more competition, but this is also a healthy situation where we have to prove that we are offering greater quality. Our passengers will pay for it if they are convinced that they will get what they’re paying for.”
The German executive concluded with a reference to the airline he headed for several years not so long ago: Air Dolomiti. Eberhart believes it could expand its current role as a Lufthansa feeder to the benefit of other airlines in the group, ITA Airways included.
“At a group level, they could be feeding into Rome in the future. We were already requesting some of their capacity for this year, but all the capacity was already planned by Lufthansa. So, we are now talking about next year to see whether it might be possible to get some feeding from their side. It makes sense to have Air Dolomiti, for example, in Florence. From there they could serve all the hubs of the group, not only Frankfurt and Munich. They could also serve Zurich, Vienna, Brussels and Rome, all six hubs of the group. They are very cost efficient they can serve the whole group. This makes sense. It’s a win, win situation.”