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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The gap left by airberlin's collapse and exit can be likened to that left by a hand withdrawn from a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.
Summary
Germany is Italy's biggest market and Germany-Italy is Europe's number four country pair. It
is strongly skewed towards Germans visiting Italy.
Seat numbers on Germany-Italy grew by 22% from 2012 to 2017, but are set to fall slightly in
summer 2018.
Frankfurt has the most routes to Italy among German airports, while Lamezia Terme, among
Italian airports, has the highest number to Germany.
The number one player Lufthansa Group and number three easyJet are benefiting from
airberlin's exit. Number two Ryanair is pausing growth.
Between 2012 and 2017 seat numbers in the market between Germany and Italy grew by 22.0%,
or a compound average of 4.1% p.a. This five-year increase was faster than the 18.7% growth for
Germany-UK, but slower than UK-Spain's 78.5% and Germany-Spain's 45.2% increase over the
same period.
The demise of airberlin in late Oct-2017 caused a slowing of seat growth on Germany-Italy, from
7.8% in 2016 to 2.4% in 2017. In 2018, seat numbers look set to slide backwards by approximately
1%, but this small decline indicates the robustness of this market, given the loss of what was the
number three operator.
Germany is the biggest source of tourist arrivals in Italy, with 10.8 million visitors in 2015, a share of
20% (according to data from Italy's National Tourism Agency).
By contrast, in 2017 there were only 1.7 million tourist visitors from Italy to Germany (only the
seventh largest source, according to Germany Destatis).
Germany-Italy 2012 to 2017: growth in seats, airports, airlines
and routes
The growth in seats on Germany-Italy between 2012 and 2017 can be further analysed by the
number of airports, airlines and routes.
Between the week of 24-Sep-2012 and the week of 25-Sep-2017, Germany-Italy seat capacity
grew by 21.7% but the number of German airports with connections to Italy fell from 18 to 16,
whereas the number of Italian airports with links to Germany grew from 25 to 27 (bringing the total
from 43 to 46).
The number of airlines rose from 10 to 15 and the total number of routes rose from 141 to 156.
Germany to Italy: number of airports, airlines and routes, Sep-2012, Sep-2017 and Sep-2018*
*Weeks of 24-Sep-2012, 25-Sep-2017 and 24-Sep-2018.
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation, OAG.
Nevertheless, in spite of lower overall capacity the number of airports in this market will increase,
with the number of Italian airports growing from 27 to 28 and the number of German airports
rising from 16 to 18.
The number of routes between Germany and Italy will increase by 11, from 156 to 167.
Frankfurt has the most routes to Italy (22), followed by Munich (20), Cologne/Bonn (18), Berlin
Schoenefeld (14), Berlin Tegel (13) and Hamburg (13). There are a further four German airports with
10 or more direct links to Italy (see chart below).
Between Sep-2012 and Sep-2018 Frankfurt will have added nine more routes to Italy, a bigger
increase than any other airport, followed by Hamburg, with a gain of eight routes. Berlin
Schoenefeld's Italy network will have six more destinations this summer versus 2012, and
Cologne/Bonn's gain will be four.
Germany airports with direct links to Italy: Sep-2012, Sep-2017 and Sep-2018*
*Weeks of 24-Sep-2012, 25-Sep-2017 and 24-Sep-2018.
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation, OAG.
Lamezia Terme has the highest number of direct links to Germany (13), followed by services from
Bari (12), Cagliari, Naples and Olbia (11 each), and Catania (10).
Rome Ciampino will have six more destinations in Germany in Sep-2018 compared with Sep-2012,
while Lamezia Terme's Germany network will be larger by five destinations. Bari, Cagliari and
Trieste each have four more German routes than in summer 2012. Rome Fiumicino has lost eight.
The list of Italian airports is strongly skewed towards leisure destinations, reflecting a key dynamic
of the Germany-Italy market.
Italy's two biggest airports overall are Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa, which are less purely
focused on leisure traffic, but are only 12th and eighth respectively by number of routes to
Germany.
Italian airports with direct links to Germany: Sep-2012, Sep-2017 and Sep-2018*
*Weeks of 24-Sep-2012, 25-Sep-2017 and 24-Sep-2018.
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation, OAG
On the German side, the market is more focused on the country's leading airports (although Berlin
Schoenefeld is punching above its weight in this market). On the Italian side, the market is spread
among a growing number of mainly leisure destinations.
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation, OAG.
One or other of these two airports, the biggest in each country, features in eight of the top ten
Germany-Italy routes, and Germany's number two airport, Munich, features in the other two.
On the German side, only Frankfurt and Munich feature in the top 10 routes whereas on the Italian
side Fiumicino, Milan Linate, Milan Malpensa, Venice Marco Polo, Florence, Naples and Bologna
all feature.
Again, this highlights the mainly leisure, mainly orientated from Germany to Italy, nature of this
market.
Germany to Italy: airport pair routes with a seat share of at least 1%, week of 24-Sep-2018
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation, OAG.
Five airlines that operated routes in this market in Sep-2017 will not be present in Sep-2018:
airberlin (which ceased operating entirely in Oct-2017), Air Italy, Transavia, Flybe and Blue Air.
Air Italy, Transavia, Flybe and Blue Air had less than 2% of seats between them last summer, but
airberlin had a seat share of 11.3% and was the number three operator.
Against these exits are two additional airlines in Sep-2018: TUIfly and Germania.
In summer 2018 Germania enters on Dresden-Lamezia Terme and Erfurt-Palermo (only for two
weeks in each of April and May), Saarbruecken-Pisa (only one week in May). TUIfly operates only
seasonally, with short seasons, and flew Germany-Italy only in June in summer last year.
A second Lufthansa Group company, the regional airline Air Dolomiti, is fifth with 8.9%, while with
just 3.4% Italy's national airline Alitalia is sixth and just ahead of Condor, which has 3.1%.
The Lufthansa Group has 62.5% of seats in the week of 24-Sep-2018, up from 55.6% a year
earlier.
Airberlin was number three, but its exit has been absorbed
The loss of airberlin from the market has been absorbed by the growth of other airlines and the
overall market has dropped by only a little more than 3,000 weekly seats, or 1.6%.
In particular, easyJet is growing by 63%, Eurowings by 14%, Lufthansa by 7%, Air Dolomiti by 20%
and Condor by 187%. Ryanair's weekly seat numbers are broadly stable in the week of 24-Sep-
2018 (but this summer it is growing by increasing the duration of its seasonal peak).
EasyJet's additional 9,000 weekly seats, the Lufthansa Group's additional 13,000, and Condor's
4,000 new weekly seats together match the nearly 25,000 that airberlin deployed in the week of
25-Sep-2017.
Alitalia is cutting 1,000 weekly seats and the other four airlines that have left the market
represented around 4,000 weekly seats.
9 TUIfly 0.3% -
10 bmi regional 0.2% 10.8%
11 Germania 0.2% -
Lufthansa itself cut capacity in 2013 to 2015, before stabilising. It transferred capacity first to
Germanwings and then to Eurowings, while also expanding its Italian subsidiary Air Dolomiti.
Germany to Italy: Lufthansa Group airlines weekly seat capacity, Jan-2012 to Sep-2018
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation, OAG.
Ryanair, which grew its Germany-Italy seat numbers by 66% from 2012 to 2017, is slowing its
growth to a relatively modest 7% this summer.
Alitalia cut its seat numbers to Germany by 17% in 2017 and, in summer 2018, it is cutting its
capacity in this market by 12%.
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation, OAG.
See related report: Alitalia's culture of losses continues. Partners are hard to find
However, Lufthansa Group's strength in this market also suggests that it does not need to buy any
of Alitalia. The disappearance of Alitalia might be a better outcome for it. Lufthansa will certainly
not want to buy Alitalia without meaningful restructuring first being achieved.
EasyJet, whose position in this market has also received a boost from airberlin's demise, is also a
bidder for parts of Alitalia. An acquisition could help third placed easyJet to close the gap on
second placed Ryanair.
Ryanair originally expressed interest in Alitalia but withdrew any possibility of a bid to focus on its
crew rostering problems last winter. Ranked second by seats on Germany-Italy, Eurowings now
more or less matches Ryanair's size in this market.
Ryanair now risks falling behind Eurowings and being an even more distant second to the
Lufthansa Group. Delays to the sale of Alitalia (or parts of it) may perhaps mean that a revived bid
from Ryanair cannot be ruled out. Like easyJet, Ryanair would also be interested in Alitalia's seat
share to other countries in Europe.
The future structure of the Germany-Italy market has not been settled yet.