Lufthansa Group is ramping up efforts to integrate new member airline ITA Airways, starting with merging frequent flyer programmes.
The German airline company said on 3 February that, starting immediately, ITA loyalty members can earn and redeem points on all flights operated by Lufthansa, as well as fellow Lufthansa Group carriers Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines.
Lufthansa members can also earn and redeem points on ITA flights.
Starting on 30 March, ITA will begin operating at Lufthansa Airlines’ terminals in Frankfurt and Munich, while the carriers already share terminals in Rome and Milan.
Also on that date, ITA passengers can use about 130 airport lounges offered by Lufthansa Group and its partners, and the two carriers will begin a codeshare relationship that will kick off with more than 100 flight connections.
“These codeshares make it possible to combine flights of different airlines in the group into a single booking,” Lufthansa says. ”Once fully implemented, this code-sharing will give ITA Airways passengers access to over 250 destinations of the Lufthansa Group.”
The growing relationship will also include coordinating flight schedules to better optimise flights between Lufthansa’s hubs of Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels to ITA’s hubs of Rome and Milan.
On the cargo side, the cooperation will be “quickly intensified” with the first joint offers for freight customers coming online in the summer months.
Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa’s chief executive, says that the airline group is confident that ITA will “realise a profit as early as this year” as a result of the tie-up.
Lufthansa completed its long-sought acquisition of ITA last month, following the €325 million ($334 million) capital increase’s approval by the Italian ministry of economy and finance, which retained its 59% shareholding of ITA. The remaining 41% stake has been transferred to Lufthansa Group.
ITA also recently disclosed that it will leave the SkyTeam alliance in favour of rival Star Alliance.
