ITA Airways Star Alliance Move Is Getting Closer
ITA Airways is moving steadily deeper into the Lufthansa Group ecosystem, but it is important to separate what is already confirmed from what is still being assumed.
The airline has been in the Star Alliance integration process since April 2025, following Lufthansa Group’s investment and its acquisition of a 41% stake in the Italian carrier. That is real and significant. What is not clearly confirmed in the public official material I found is that ITA Airways will become a full Star Alliance member on April 1, 2026.
So the strongest and most accurate way to frame the story is this: ITA is moving rapidly toward Star Alliance alignment, and April 1 is a major milestone in that process because it joins Miles & More fully on that date. But a fully completed alliance entry on April 1 has not been clearly confirmed in the official sources I reviewed.
The Lufthansa Integration Is Already Well Advanced
Even without a formal full Star Alliance entry date confirmed, ITA Airways is no longer in a transitional limbo in practical terms.
Since Lufthansa Group’s investment closed in January 2025, the integration has moved quickly. ITA has already shifted into Lufthansa Group terminal areas at major hubs such as Frankfurt Airport (FRA) and Munich Airport (MUC), expanded codeshare cooperation across the group, and aligned a range of customer benefits with Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, and Brussels Airlines.
That matters because, for passengers, alliance membership is only one part of integration. The more important day-to-day reality is whether the airline behaves like part of a larger network. ITA increasingly does.
April 1 Is A Loyalty Milestone
What is clearly confirmed for April 1, 2026 is the loyalty-program shift.
Miles & More becomes the official loyalty program of ITA Airways from that date, marking one of the biggest integration steps yet. That is a major development because loyalty is one of the deepest forms of airline integration. Once an airline moves onto the dominant frequent-flyer platform of its parent group, the commercial and customer relationship usually becomes much tighter.
That means ITA passengers will be drawn more directly into the Lufthansa Group’s broader ecosystem, and the airline’s old in-between status becomes much less pronounced.
The SkyTeam Era Is Effectively Over
Even if the final Star Alliance switch is not formally complete on April 1, ITA’s direction of travel is no longer in doubt.
The airline has already moved away from SkyTeam in practical strategic terms and has been aligning increasingly with Lufthansa Group airlines rather than its former alliance partners. Any residual overlap with older partnerships now looks transitional rather than structural.
That is the broader strategic reality. ITA is no longer being shaped as a SkyTeam carrier. It is being rebuilt as a Lufthansa Group airline.
Why This Matters For Europe
This shift is bigger than one airline changing logos on an alliance page.
ITA Airways gives Lufthansa Group a stronger position in Italy, one of Europe’s most important aviation markets. For Star Alliance, ITA would strengthen the group’s southern European coverage and improve Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO) and Milan Linate Airport (LIN) connectivity into the alliance’s wider network.
For frequent flyers, the value is obvious: more coordinated earning and redemption, deeper hub integration, and smoother onward connectivity. For the Lufthansa Group, the value is equally clear: Italy becomes more tightly woven into its own system rather than sitting partially outside it.
Bottom Line
ITA Airways is clearly moving toward full Star Alliance integration, but the claim that it will officially join Star Alliance on April 1, 2026 goes further than the official public material I found supports.
What is confirmed is that ITA has been in the Star Alliance integration process since April 2025 and that, from April 1, 2026, Miles & More becomes ITA Airways’ official loyalty program. That makes April 1 a major milestone in the Lufthansa integration, even if full alliance entry on that exact date has not been clearly confirmed in the sources available.
