Airline dependency on state support a new normal: Lufthansa chief

Government involvement has become “the new normal” for the world’s largest long-haul airlines amid the Covid-19 pandemic, in the view of Lufthansa Group chief Carsten Spohr. Spohr said Lufthansa “was a big fan of liberalisation and privatisation”. He likened the German carrier’s privatisation in 1997 and subsequent growth to British Airways’ privatisation a decade earlier and its later merger with Iberia to form IAG. But Spohr adds: “Covid turned that trend around, and we have to accept that.” The German government has taken a 20% shareholding in Lufthansa Group as part of a E9b financial support package aimed at preventing insolvency. This has not put Lufthansa out of line with international peers, Spohr points out. Citing government shareholdings in Air France-KLM and the part-ownership of IAG by state-owned Qatar Airways, he says the German stake in Lufthansa is “at the very low side of my global competitors”. He acknowledges that pure short-range operators have received much less support from governments. But when it comes to intercontinental operations, he argues, “we are all in a similar range here among the European legacy carriers. That’s the new normal for the three players in Europe.”<br/>