The first European air transport group Lufthansa received, last Thursday, the approval for a rescue plan of 9 billion euros, which avoids him the cessation of payment against the coronavirus and will see the German State return to its capital , AFP reported yesterday.
Meeting at a general meeting, the shareholders overwhelmingly approved the project with more than 98% of the votes.
A two-thirds majority was required. “We got there!” We are going to get out of it ”now, exulted just after the chairman of the supervisory board of the German company, Karl-Ludwig Kley, quoted by the same source. The outcome of this vote remained uncertain for a long time due to the reservations of the main shareholder of the company, a German billionaire.
The latter was reluctant to see the German state acquire at least 20% of Lufthansa under this plan, a first since the complete privatization of the company in 1997, said AFP.
And in parallel, the European Commission, guardian of competition, also announced that it was validating the project, insisting on the conditions accepted in return. “Lufthansa is committed to making available to its competitors” slots (…) at its hub airports in Frankfurt and Munich, “said commission vice-president Margrethe Vestager.
However, this is not enough for low cost airline Ryanair, which has announced that it will file a lawsuit. To convince the shareholders, Lufthansa recalled that the company, practically nailed to the ground by the epidemic, was financially distressed.
“We have no more money,” warned the chairman of the supervisory board. Without state support, Lufthansa should file for bankruptcy within “a few days”, he warned.
AFP which reports that “in the negotiations around the rescue plan, the main current shareholder, the German billionaire Heinz Hermann Thiele, who still holds 15.5% of the capital, played a pivotal role”, indicates that this is not is that at the last moment, Wednesday evening, he said that he would approve the aid plan, while demanding a rapid “restructuring” of the company. And “I will have an influence on developments at Lufthansa in the future,” warned the businessman, who weighs 15 billion euros according to Forbes magazine, said the same source.
The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in Lufthansa ‘s almost total cessation of “passenger” operations. At the peak of the crisis, the group lost 1 million euros per hour. But even benefiting from public aid, the future looks complicated, because the restart will only be very gradual: in September, it provides an offer still 60% lower than normal. “A rapid recovery is not in sight, and we know that the consequences (of the coronavirus) will have an impact again for the next few years,” said group boss Carsten Spohr, “extensive restructuring” is necessary.
According to the French agency, in the long term, the group will have a hundred fewer planes on its 763 before the crisis, which grounded almost the entire fleet for almost two months. To adapt to this prolonged decline, Lufthansa wants to cut 22,000 full-time equivalent jobs, or 16% of the global workforce, half of which is in Germany, and is negotiating with unions for this purpose.
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