Delta and Lufthansa seek partnership with Alitalia successor ITA

Delta and the Lufthansa Group are jockeying to become the new state-owned Italian carrier Italia Trasporto Aereo’s (ITA) strategic partner after it begins flying in October. Delta CEO Ed Bastian and Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr confirmed talks with the new carrier at the IATA Annual General Meeting in Boston on October 3. Though both emphasized that they were interested in a strategic commercial partnership of some sort — likely including a codeshare, interline and maybe joint venture — and not an equity investment at this time. “[ITA] has some more fundamental questions before they launch rather than who their international partners are, but we’re in conversations,” Bastian said. He cited Delta’s long partnership with ITA predecessor Alitalia, which dates to the 1990s. Alitalia was also part of the Delta’s transatlantic joint venture with Air France and KLM until the pact was updated to include Virgin Atlantic in 2020. Spohr was much more aggressive in his approach to ITA. Citing the fact that Italy is the Lufthansa Group’s most important foreign market after the US, he said a partnership with Lufthansa was the “natural home” for the new carrier. “If you look at Swiss, you see how good it was for them not to be called Swissair. I would assume that a new Italian airline copies the model of Swiss in two ways: Finds Lufthansa as a partner and adopts a new name. It’s the magic secret of success,” Spohr said. <br/>