Air transport: State aid for airports

Berlin / Frankfurt Gereon Arens finally wanted to be in the black: for twelve years he had invested in his aircraft maintenance company in Haitec, set up workshop hangars at Hahn Airport and hired more than 400 employees and 38 apprentices. As the last independent maintenance company, you can even get one Boeing 747, Arens reports proudly. A success story in the structurally weak Hunsrück region. “Then Corona came,” says Arens.

And so this year will probably be the bitterest in the company’s history for Haitec. Because without flights there are no orders, and an improvement is not in sight as long as the virus continues to spread.

Because Arens banks want to see collateral, the way to state development banks is blocked for him. And state aid is no way out either: “So far we have not fit into any aid fund,” says Arens. Its balance sheet total was minimally too small for the economic stabilization fund.

30 to 40 percent of the employees had to send Arens on short-time work. In the next year he actually wants to train new mechanics, business people and computer scientists.

Arens is not alone with such problems: According to the industry association BDLI, 70 percent of industrial employees are on short-time work. A total of a quarter of a million people in Germany make their living at airports and with airlines. Because there is little hope for improvement, 60,000 employees – and thus one in five – will probably have to look for a new job. In total, more than 800,000 direct and indirect employees are asking how things will go next.