Summary
- Lufthansa must give up Milan slots for ITA acquisition.
- Ryanair is uninterested in Lufthansa hub destinations.
- Ryanair is hesitant to grow in German market due to unfavorable conditions.
41% of Italian carrier ITA Airways is currently in the process of being bought by the
Lufthansa Group
. The deal was given a conditional green light by EU regulators earlier this year, and one of the conditions was that
Lufthansa
would have to give up a number of short-haul slots to rival airlines.
It was previously reported that Lufthansa was in discussions with both Volotea and easyJet regarding these slots. Neither of these airlines is
Ryanair
, but according to Italy’s La Stampa, the airline isn’t actually interested in these slots to start with for various reasons.
Too many conditions
According to aero.de, the slots on offer to airlines are around 15 take-off and landing slots at Milan Linate Airport. This equates to 204 per week in summer and 192 per week in the winter. It is envisioned that whoever takes the slots would primarily use them to fly to the likes of Frankfurt, Munich, and Brussels.
Photo: Ryanair
These are all Lufthansa Group strongholds meaning that with ITA in the group, there would be no competition on the routes. Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair, is reported to have told La Stampa in an interview that these slots “have constraints, are not at the right times, or are too expensive.” according to Reuters.
Not a surprise?
It perhaps doesn’t come as a huge surprise that Ryanair isn’t enthused by these slots given that they appear to be largely tied to flying to Lufthansa hubs. The Irish low-cost carrier has made it clear that Germany is not a market where is seeks huge growth due to the current conditions.
In April 2023, we reported that Germany was the only major Ryanair market that still hadn’t recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to data from Cirium, this remains the case into 2024. The airline only has 51,545 Germany departures scheduled from January to December this year, compared to 57,608 in 2019. This was already a drop from 59,111 in 2018.

Related
The Biggest Loser: Germany Is Ryanair’s Only Major Unrecovered Market
Ryanair is currently predicted to be 7,156 flights short of its 2019 German flight schedule.
A future in Germany?
Michael O’Leary, CEO of the Ryanair Group, has made many an attack on Lufthansa. However, in March 2023, he hinted to Simple Flying that he does believe that the LCC still has a place in Germany, remarking,
“I think that German airports will realize in a year or two that having a national champion like Lufthansa that overcharges everybody six, seven, eight hundred euros is not necessarily the way forward, and there’ll be more scope for us to do deals with airports and to grow, but it will take a year or two.”
Photo: Tom Boon – Simple Flying
Ryanair did, in fact, used to operate from Frankfurt Airport, and was competing against Lufthansa between the two cities from 2017 to 2022. Of course, the airline was flying to Bergamo. Ryanair was the last of the low-cost carriers to withdraw from Frankfurt Airport after subsidies ran out in 2019. easyJet and Wizz Air also used to fly Germany’s aviation capital.