Lufthansa has a theory about why Europe’s airline industry remains so fragmented, even as the U.S. airline industry has become so consolidated. More interestingly, Lufthansa has a plan to help change that. There are four big impediments to European airline consolidation, the giant German airline says. For one, many European carriers (i.e. SAS, Finnair, TAP Portugal, LOT Polish, etc.) are partly or fully owned by governments, while others (i.e., Alitalia, Air Berlin, TAP Portugal, Virgin Atlantic, Czech Airlines, etc.) have ownership backing from foreign airlines. Some of these airlines might have been forced to merge with other European carriers had…
