While ITA Airways celebrated its first profitable year in 2025, the airline outlined several issues to address, including concerns that its profit is not sustainable because lease obligations remain inflated.
On March 25, 2026, ITA Airways announced that its Board confirmed the Italian airline’s financial statement for 2025, detailing only four financial metrics:
- Revenues of €3.2 billion ($3.6 billion)
- Operating profit of €25 million ($28.8 million)
- Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of €404 million ($465.9 million)
- Net profit of €209 million ($241 million).
“These results were achieved thanks to the consolidation of the work carried out by the entire Company, as well as the contribution of the initial phase of synergies realised with the Lufthansa Group […].”
However, ITA Airways detailed that 2025 was a complex year due to several factors, including the challenging geopolitical context, which affected demand for flights from Europe to the United States, the impact of the European Commission’s (EC) requested remedies to approve Lufthansa Group’s acquisition of a 41% stake in the Italian carrier, the availability of Pratt & Whitney PW1100G and PW1900G-powered next-generation Airbus aircraft, and “the absence of commercial support from a partner carrier on routes between Italy and the United States, the Company’s primary international market.”
Still, the airline had some tailwind from the “positive effects of the accounting adjustment of debts and credits denominated in foreign currency (primarily US dollars) to year-end exchange rates.”
ITA Airways also warned that its profitability might not be sustainable due to “the financial costs associated with the lease agreements,” which remain high, raising doubts about whether profits can continue in the short term.
The Italian airline operated over 123,000 flights in 2025, down 11% year-on-year (YoY), carrying 16.2 million passengers, which is 8% fewer than in 2024. Average load factors improved by 2.1 percentage points to 83.4%, it said.
Joerg Eberhart, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ITA Airways, who previously was the CEO of Air Dolomiti and the Head of Strategy at Lufthansa Group, said that 2025 was a turning point for the Italian airline.
The profit was the “result of the commitment of the entire company and the first tangible effects of our industrial partnership with the Lufthansa Group.”
Eberhart reiterated that if ITA Airways wants to remain profitable, it must “reduce the burden of fleet leasing costs; we are already working resolutely on this.”
ITA Airways ended the year with 106 aircraft in its fleet, 24 widebodies and 82 narrowbodies, 70% of which were next-generation aircraft. So far in 2026, the Italian airline has phased out a single A330ceo, registered as EI-EJH, which will soon join Azul’s fleet, according to planespotters.net.
While Lufthansa Group’s yearly report did not detail the financial results of ITA Airways, the Germany-based airline group detailed that its operating result from equity investments was up by 31% YoY, which included the “pro rata positive result from the ITA Airways joint venture, which was strongly affected by foreign currency valuation effects, as well as the positive performance of Lufthansa’s SunExpress joint venture and the Terminal 2 joint venture at Munich Airport.”
Rytis Beresnevicius
