Eurowings acquires slots at London-Gatwick as Lufthansa Group reshuffles London slot portfolio
Eurowings is temporarily leasing LGW slots from ITA Airways.
Eurowings has acquired slots at London Gatwick Airport (LGW), an airport it has not served, with Lufthansa Group shuffling some of its slot portfolio at the airports serving the British capital.
In a slot transaction unveiled on January 19, 2026, ITA Airways will temporarily lease slots at LGW to Eurowings for the summer 2026 season. Instead of the original route, from LGW to Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO), Eurowings has filed slots for daily departures to Cologne Bonn Airport (CGN), one of its major bases in Germany.
Cirium’s Diio Mi showed that Eurowings has never served LGW, primarily focusing on flying to London’s main gateway, Heathrow Airport (LHR).
Before the pandemic, Eurowings also served London Stansted Airport (STN).
Eurowings’ booking engine has yet to add LGW as a bookable destination, and the airline has not announced the LGW-CGN service.
Lufthansa also transferred 70 weekly slots at LHR to its Lufthansa City Airlines subsidiary, which it uses to operate feeder flights from Frankfurt Airport (FRA) and Munich Airport (MUC).
ITA Airways leasing its LGW slots to Eurowings came almost a month after Lufthansa transferred double-daily slots at LHR to the Italian carrier, facilitating its return to LHR starting with the upcoming summer season.
Lufthansa Group had already announced that the Italian airline would return to LHR in October 2025, at the time saying that its “detailed summer schedule will be published at a later date.”
According to previous reports by Corriere Della Serra, Alitalia, and its successor ITA Airways, had leased its LHR slots from Etihad Airways for over €10,000 ($11,715) per day. The Italian carrier returned the slots to Etihad Airways in June 2023.
Airport Coordination Limited (ACL), an independent slot coordinator, indicated that Eurowings had already requested 780 slots at LGW, having received 360 for the whole summer 2026 season.
Meanwhile, ITA Airways had not requested any new slots at LGW.
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