Lufthansa-rescue – The problems only start now Lufthansa comes only thanks to billions from the state from the greatest Distress. The return to normality will be expensive.Björn Finke and Jens Flottau1 Kommentar1Lufthansa-Chef Carsten Spohr must lead to a crisis his airline from the Corona.Photo: Andreas Gebert (Reuters)
at the beginning of March. Lufthansa-Chef Carsten Spohr, 53, sits in the conference room of the slightly antiquated Brussels luxury Hotels in metropolis and discussed with the colleagues in the other major European airlines. The International tourism has been cancelled-Börse (ITB), but still, the Corona feels crisis after the great disaster. It is still traveled and flown, one is even Hand. Spohr believes that in the end companies such as Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Ryanair, the biggest in the industry, will benefit. Lufthansa will be longer than most of the other hold. A Misjudgement.
Good two and a half months later, Lufthansa can only narrowly and, thanks to a nine billion Euro large government rescue package, the bankruptcy avoid. Corona has made within weeks of the successful corporations of any Size supplicants. It’s not survival, with few exceptions, the Strong, but to those who know a financially strong state behind. “That’s what I perceived at the time in a different way,” admitted Spohr weeks after the Brussels Meeting.
Lufthansa any flight is not the society: it was so far, Europe’s largest Airline, with 760 aircraft, and brands such as Lufthansa, Eurowings, Austrian, Swiss and Brussels Airlines. The technology subsidiary is one of the largest specialists in the lucrative maintenance business. Lufthansa was founded in 1953 by the allies again, since 1955, there is a line of traffic. The company with the crane was known and loved worldwide, flew but also through many crises. In 1997, the state decided to back out entirely.
costs
The last three fiscal years were financially the best of the company’s history, although the gains were due to the weakening of the economic growth declined significantly. Who was looking for points of criticism, which was somehow missing the answer to the question of what comes next. More Mergers And Acquisitions? Maybe the ailing Norwegian or the notorious loss-making Alitalia? You could come to the high cost and the multiple failed planned offshoot Euro wings. The problems from today’s point of view they fell into the category of “actions for cruising altitude”.
Lufthansa now flies so even without a bankruptcy procedure, but it is a different company. The group will be particularly small, for 2023, analysts expect the air traffic to return to the old level. The group had to take advantage of the Situation to lower the cost fundamentally, you are asking for.
There are even in for the end of 2021 expected steady-state flight condition of about 10’000 people are forcing to much on Board, the conditions of the state bailout, but at the same time to Save money. The loans and silent participations must be repaid, including interest, which will rise from four per cent to up to 9.5 per cent in the year 2027.
the network
One of the short-term biggest problems must be solved by the people in the engine room of the Lufthansa Aviation center (LAC), the Frankfurt headquarters. How to build actually, within weeks or months of a route network that has previously disappeared for several months, practically complete and in the Lufthansa before in decades of work has grown? So to fill a hollowed-out shell, has so far not tried no one.
Lufthansa has decided to fly from mid-June to only about one percent of their previous capacity, but about 14 percent. The travel restrictions should in due time fall before the summer. 106 goals in Germany and Europe, as well as 20 long-haul routes will be offered again. Many of them will have runs, the character of the test – only one or two flights per week for the beginning, and if it is running more soon. The ramp-up will initially cost a lot of money, which will make Lufthansa the shareholders clearly, the need to sign off at the end of June, the state aid package yet.
Coveted takeoff and landing rights
And then there is the EU Commission, which wants a say an important word. Yet Berlin has made no request, but there have already been preliminary talks in Brussels. The Commission representatives brought into the game that Lufthansa takeoff and landing would have to give rights to airports, such as Frankfurt and Munich, because the group controlling the market. Ryanair boss Michael O’leary announced that he would protest against the aid, Brussels, Lufthansa is “addicted to government aid.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to prevent runs, according to reports.
The Commission has published only three weeks ago, the rules, the conditions under which you may accept Capital injections. So far, the authority had approved a state entry in a company in accordance with this rulebook, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday: Lufthansa might be a Premiere. Rivals such as Air France received state aid, only loans, not equity, and therefore were other, less stringent rules. Daniel Caspary, the Chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the European Parliament, said he expected the green light from Brussels: “Lufthansa is a healthy and solventes companies with a Europe-wide importance. It is clearly not an unfair competitive advantage.”
the new rules of The Commission, however, are harsh, and it is under pressure – see Ryanair: The authority is concerned that the Capital support provided by governments to distort competition. Therefore, companies need to have a partially dominant position in the market and now in the style capital from the state, subsidiaries, sell, or business fields to give in order to reduce the harmful consequences for the competition. In the case of Lufthansa, the coveted takeoff and landing rights would.
With such requirements, the Commission and Lufthansa have plenty of experience: they are a standard edition, which Brussels can impose on mergers among airlines. Behind the hard-line also the concern that differences between the state AIDS distort competition.
For Lufthansa-Chef Spohr begin now so many new problems.
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