Airline Chatter

There is a great business article over at N-TV today, which chats over the airline business, and how the recession path may go.

Lufthansa, for those who didn't grasp this....is 'the' major German airline now, without any real competition at this point within the country.

If you count all of its assets....763 total planes.

So here's the curious thing since Corona came along and marginal travel started up....only 63 planes are flying now.  Yes....the massive bulk are sitting.

There are some plans to bring on more planes in June and July....but we probably aren't talking about more than a hundred  of them.

The plans for 2021?  At least 300 will NOT be flying (expectation of business not returning).

In fact, they are suggesting that 200 may be grounded through parts of 2022, depending on the recession and business expectations.

Basically, you read through the whole thing....the impression is that they need to sell off a number of planes.  Maybe a minimum of 200.....maybe on up to the 300 range.

Buyers?  No one says much.  Virtually every airline in Europe has the same issue, and there's simply not anyone there to buy the planes.

So what happens to ticket prices?  This is just me looking at the issue, but you'd have to almost double ticket prices.....to get the pay-back for bank loans to cover what they spent to bulk up over the past ten years.

In the long term?  I'd be guessing that both Airbus and Boeing are going to seriously be hurting through the next five years.