Air Dolomiti (EN, Verona) could be repositioned as a budget operation under the "Wings" plan parent Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) has devised. Citing internal company documents, German travel magazine FVW says Lufthansa Group has already tasked germanwings (4U, Cologne/Bonn) Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, Oliver Wagner, with devising a possible strategy for the Group's Italian operation.
Under the Wings concept, Lufthansa intends to relaunch Eurowings (EW, Düsseldorf) as a regional European LCC in spring 2015. The new carrier will operate a fleet of twenty-three A320-200s with its initial base set to be Basel/Mulhouse/Freiburg, CH.
While a renewed Eurowings will initially focus on core home markets in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium, Lufthansa's CEO Karl Ulrich Garnadt has disclosed plans to also enter the Italian market where domestic flights are currently dominated by budget carriers such as Ryanair (FR, Dublin International) and easyJet (London Luton). It is here where Air Dolomiti will likely find its new niche, he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Lufthansa's Wings proposal also includes plans to develop a long haul budget carrier which, Garnadt added, will now use a fleet of seven A330-200s (as opposed to A330-300s as previously reported) based out of Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf and Munich. Among the options on the table are using its Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport) joint venture, SunExpress (XQ, Antalya), as a platform for the operation.
While Lufthansa management is only expected to make a decision in December, Lufthansa Group CEO Karsten Spohr has said that the German carrier is willing to go it alone should the need arise.
