German carrier airberlin is continuing to optimise its route network with the expansion of its services into its important focus market of Italy at the beginning of the summer schedule. The changes will further deepen the strength of United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier Etihad Airways and its Etihad Airways Partner concept within the European market given its shareholdings in both airberlin and its more recent investment in Italian flag carrier, Alitalia.

The new route strategy into Italy will see airberlin introduce a new daily service from Stuttgart to Rome from March 29, 2015, operated by an Airbus A320, as well as a 17 times weekly, up to three times daily link from Stuttgart to Milan Linate from May 2015, flown by a Bombardier Dash 8-Q400. In addition, starting the same month, airberlin will expand its service on the existing Stuttgart to Venice route to a daily summer schedule.

Elsewhere, the carrier will boost its weekly scheduled between Dusseldorf and Rome from March 29, 2015 with six new rotations from Monday to Friday as well as two flights on Sundays. Several improvements to the flight schedules of existing services complete the optimisation of the airline’s programme between Germany to Italy.

With up to ten additional flights per week compared to last year, airberlin will operate a total of 260 flights a week from Germany, Austria and Switzerland to Italy during summer 2015. The new flights will be integrated into the codeshare agreement with Alitalia which was launched at the start of the current winter 2014/2015 schedule.

"The new flights, increased frequencies and the optimisation of many departure times send a clear signal for our services to Italy. They place us in a strong position in the fiercely competitive, growing Italian market and offer our passengers an even wider range of services with excellent travel opportunities for summer 2015," said Götz Ahmelmann, chief commercial officer, airberlin.

The two routes from Stuttgart to Milan and Rome will place airberlin in direct competition with Germanwings (for Lufthansa) and Vueling on the Rome route (the latter also introduces flights on the route from March 2015), while it will face indirect competition to Milan via Germanwings (for Lufthansa) and easyJet (launches April 2015) which serve Malpensa rather than Linate. airberlin has served the Stuttgart – Milan market as recently as between March 2010 and August 2012 when it also offered flights to Malpensa Airport.

In our analysis, below, we look at bi-directional O&D demand between Stuttgart and the two Italian cities over the last ten years.