ITA Airways keeps its name. The group keeps the loyalty

Italy’s flag carrier is handing its group almost everything that keeps customers, except its name.
In an interview with International Air Transport Association (IATA)‘s Airlines magazine this week, ITA Airways CEO Joerg Eberhart described group membership as combining local strengths with global scale: shared expertise, purchasing power and network synergies, while each airline keeps its own brand and positioning.

Viewed through a marketing lens, the division of labour becomes clear. Over the past year, ITA has swapped its Volare programme for Lufthansa‘s Miles & More, joined Star Alliance and moved its German operations into Lufthansa’s terminals in Frankfurt and Munich. Once Lufthansa’s stake rises from 41% to 90% (closing expected in Q1 2027), the group owns the pipeline: network, alliance and, above all, the loyalty currency. When a frequent flyer’s miles and status live at group level, the habit no longer belongs to the individual airline. The brand has to win the booking on its own.

The interview also shows the brand has a second job. Eberhart positions ITA as the group’s “southern gateway” to South America: it already has the largest Europe-South America presence within the Lufthansa Group and has doubled the group’s capacity to Brazil.
Put the two together and this month’s “Simply Italian” campaign reads differently. Its rollout runs Italy, then the United States, then Brazil: ITA’s home market, its largest market abroad, and the corridor the group has handed it to own. The brand is being asked to do what loyalty no longer can, in exactly the markets where the group needs it to perform.

The forecast: over the next 12 to 18 months, ITA’s marketing will concentrate on what a group cannot standardise, namely the Italian experience onboard and on the ground and a distinctive voice in South America, while its commercial levers converge on the Lufthansa playbook. Confidence: medium. Eberhart lists a premium customer experience among his unchanged priorities, and the Swiss, Austrian and Brussels precedent is strong. The open question is how much budget and autonomy a 90%-owned brand keeps once integration is formally complete.

The lesson travels beyond Rome. In a multi-brand group, the airline that owns the experience but not the loyalty has to be exceptionally good at the experience, and in the right places.