Air Dolomiti: Lufthansa’s hub-feeder from Italy. What is its role in the Lufthansa group?

Air Dolomiti has seen a lot of route volatility recently, as highlighted by a recent wave of route closures. The Italian regional airline is suspending Milan Bergamo-Frankfurt, Verona-Frankfurt and its two Moscow services. Earlier this year, it ceased Verona to Vienna and Zurich and Florence-Monaco. Many of these routes were only started quite recently. Its website currently offers only five routes, all of which it took over from its owner Lufthansa earlier in 2013. Lufthansa operates 25 routes between Germany and Italy and its LCC Germanwings operates 23.

Lufthansa has had an equity stake in Air Dolomiti since 1999 and owned it outright since 2003. It does not separately disclose traffic data or financial results, but is included within the Lufthansa Passenger Airline Group for reporting purposes and is a minnow compared with its leviathan parent. To give some context, its operating fleet of fourteen regional aircraft compares with the Lufthansa Group fleet of 637 aircraft as at 30-Jun-2013. Does Lufthansa need Air Dolomiti?