Travel Story

This is a little business story by German N-TV (commercial news) and it's curious how it revolves around the Covid-19 crisis.

For those who don't know.....the travel industry in Germany is suffering greatly (not just airports, but airlines themselves).

The airlines went to the government and said they would not survive unless massive amounts of money flowed to them (some of it....loans, and some of it as a 'gift').

So to help Lufthansa....this package was developed which had strings attached.  The government said that the Lufthansa ownership of take-off times and parking spots at Munich and Frankfurt....had to be offered up.  In a non-Corona period, this would NEVER have occurred.  But this is a totally different business atmosphere now.

Standing in the shadows was Ryan Airways, the big discount airline of Europe.  They stepped up and said that they want some of these parking spots and take-off times. 

The number of take-off times at risk?  Twenty-four.

Ryanair says they want four of the take-off times (each) at both Munich and Frankfurt.

How this would work?  Ryanair would have to pay something (no one says how much).  Who is running this process?  Oddly enough, the EU.  To be honest about this whole thing....no one has yet laid out the bidding process, the amount of money Ryanair would have to pay, or the timelines for this.

For Lufthansa?  I'm guessing they are standing there and grumbling about the amount of value they gave up for the loans. 

At the present time, does any of this matter?  No.  Even Lufthansa kinda admits in the past week or two that they don't expect normal normal traffic flow for at least a full year, and it might be 2022 before you get back to something normal.  But when you come around to 2023/2024, and look at the position of Ryanair and Lufthansa....there will be some hostility over what happened.