The aviation, airport, and tourism consulting firm says in a report by Publituris that "the recent news that Lufthansa intends to bring forward the increase in its stake in ITA Airways from 41% to 90% by 2026 reinforces this perspective."

"This is an unequivocal signal that TAP will not be part of the German group's growth strategy, given that Germany's plan for ITA Airways is precisely to expand into Brazil and Africa – TAP's markets," emphasises Pedro Castro, director of SkyExpert, adding that "Lufthansa has already withdrawn from similar processes without presenting a proposal, as happened recently with Air Europa, but will obviously remain in this race for TAP until the end to better understand in detail which airline its rivals are buying."

Furthermore, starting in January of next year, the Lufthansa Group will move forward with an even greater centralization of services common to all its airlines in Frankfurt – a move that, in SkyExpert's view, is "incompatible" with the shareholder model envisaged for the semi-public TAP and with the vision of the Portuguese State, the majority shareholder, to maintain the decision-making centre in Lisbon.

"TAP's 44.9% stake and the uncertainty surrounding a full acquisition would be a setback for the model the German group will pursue with its airlines in 2026, a path that makes perfect sense for Lufthansa and its subsidiaries," emphasises Pedro Castro.

In terms of competition, the Lufthansa-TAP consolidation is the one that will raise "the most obstacles" in Europe and North America, highlighting the consultancy that "the transatlantic agreement with United and Air Canada places the group in the worst position to face the 'remedies' that the European Commission and the North American authorities would impose in this specific case."

In Europe, TAP and Lufthansa would be "monopolists" on the Lisbon-Brussels, Lisbon-Frankfurt, and Lisbon-Munich routes, and would tend to be so on the Lisbon-Zurich, Lisbon-Vienna, and Lisbon-Rome routes. This would imply a greater concession of slots in Lisbon and at the destination airports, to a degree incompatible with the Portuguese government's objective of strengthening TAP's operations at Portela Airport.

In comparison, the other interested European groups would have only one European route in a monopolistic situation. "Regardless of the situation on specific routes, any consolidation will always imply slot concessions on Portela, but in the case of Lufthansa, the situation is worse,” explains Pedro Castro.

United States

In the United States, both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated “high sensitivity” to American carriers’ access to congested airports. This stance was the reason for the recent decision to revoke the immunity of the partnership between Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico due to the limited access of American airlines to the congested Mexico City airport. “The Portuguese case of Portela is not much different,” explains Pedro Castro, to the point that the American company JetBlue has admitted to going to court to challenge the lack of access to slots in Lisbon with similar arguments.

“The situation becomes even more complex because United and Air Canada – Lufthansa’s transatlantic partners – are the North American carriers with the largest presence in Portugal,” together operating up to nine daily flights to up to five domestic airports, which contrasts with Delta’s two daily flights (in partnership with Air France-KLM) and American Airlines’ daily flight (in partnership with IAG).

“The same type of restrictions imposed on ITA, when it was banned from joining Lufthansa's transatlantic alliance, would inevitably be replicated at TAP, but with an even more severe degree of slot allocation for specific routes and with TAP excluded from this commercial alliance over the North Atlantic, the difficulties on North Atlantic routes will be significant,” warns Pedro Castro.

Thus, by taking into account the weight and profitability of the Brazilian market and Portuguese-speaking Africa, SkyExpert concludes that TAP would essentially represent “a burden” for Lufthansa, pointing to “financial losses, organizational and operational adjustments with the other companies and the Atlantic alliance, in addition to the potential impacts on reputation, stock market listing, and governance due to the behavior of the majority shareholder.”

Finally, SkyExpert clarifies that Lufthansa Technik's recent investment in Portugal "is unrelated to the privatization process." The Hamburg-based company has similar operations in Malta, Bulgaria, and Hungary, without this implying Lufthansa's participation in local airlines, and these investments continue to make sense even if TAP belongs to another aviation group.