Germany-Italy: a major aviation market where Lufthansa dominates

Germany is Italy's biggest aviation market and Germany-Italy is Europe's number four country pair by seat numbers. Lufthansa Group companies, led by Lufthansa and supported by the fast growing LCC subsidiary Eurowings and Italian regional subsidiary Air Dolomiti, dominate Germany-Italy. The group has a 62% seat share in the year to Sep-2018, compared with 20% for Ryanair and 9% for easyJet.

The gap left by airberlin's collapse and exit can be likened to that left by a hand withdrawn from a bucket of water. Other operators have immediately closed in around the space and airberlin's 10% seat share of last year has not been missed. Easyjet and Lufthansa, through Eurowings, are the main beneficiaries, while Condor is also growing rapidly on Germany-Italy routes.

Relative to the rapid growth of these operators, Ryanair is taking something of a pause for breath in this market this year, perhaps waiting to see what happens to Alitalia. Italy's national airline has only 4% of seats on Germany-Italy, suggesting that Lufthansa's interest in bidding for it is of only minimal importance to the German group.