Air Dolomiti aims to double the size of its fleet

Following the near-bankruptcy of Alitalia, Lufthansa is pushing ahead with the growth of its Italian subsidiary Air Dolomiti. Within four years, the fleet and workforce will be practically doubled.

Air Dolomiti is accelerating its growth and plans to increase its fleet to 26 Embraer E195s by 2023, said CEO Jorg Eberhardt in an interview with “airconvention.com”. The Italian airline currently operates 14 E195-type aircraft. Simultaneously, the workforce will also be doubled, to 1000 employees.

Not later than in September 2018, the CEO announced that Lufthansa would invest 100 million euros in Air Dolomiti to double its fleet from 10 to 20 aircraft. Since then, the ambitions have been clearly revised, probably in view of the financial problems of flag carrier Alitalia, in which Lufthansa wanted to invest. But government interference and compounded delays made such a move almost impossible.

Air Dolomiti has been wholly owned by the Lufthansa Group since 2003. In addition to feeder flights from airports such as Bologna, Turin or Venice to the Lufthansa hubs in Munich and Frankfurt, the regional carrier also carries out flights for Lufthansa in wet-lease from Munich, for example between Brussels and Munich. But in the future, the flights between Italy and Germany are to be managed entirely by Air Dolomiti.