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Ryanair boss attacks competition – verbal attack against Lufthansa & Co.

Michael O’Leary says airlines use Corona to enrich themselves with the state. His Ryanair apparently has a full cash register to survive the crisis.

“I think airlines like Lufthansa and Air France are using the Covid crisis to enrich themselves with incredibly high sums from the state”: Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary.

KEYSTONE / archive

Irish low-cost airline Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary is confident in the coronavirus pandemic. “We went into crisis with almost four billion euros in cash on our balance sheet. Even if we don’t have any sales by the end of the year, we still have enough money, especially after support measures such as short-time work benefits have been introduced in most EU countries, »he told the German« Handelsblatt ».

At the same time, he ruled out applying for state aid and added: “We do not believe that any airline should receive state support.” It didn’t make sense to him why an airline still needed state aid if one could use short-time work. Ryanair currently only has about 20 flights a day.

I think airlines like Lufthansa and Air France are using the Covid crisis to enrich themselves with incredibly high sums from the state

Michael O’Leary

Airlines all over the world are struggling to survive, because air traffic has largely come to a standstill as a result of entry stops and a slump in demand in the coronavirus pandemic. The Swiss also largely founded its fleet. The Federal Council wants to support the aviation industry in Switzerland. Nothing is decided yet (here you can read what is already known).

The Swiss parent company Lufthansa is negotiating an aid package that, according to insiders, will amount to almost ten billion euros for the entire group. O’Leary said: “I think airlines like Lufthansa and Air France are using the Covid crisis to enrich themselves with incredibly high sums from the state.”

In the face of the crisis, the Ryanair boss announced job cuts: “I think a ten to 20 percent cut in winter is almost inevitable.”

Ten billion euros for Air France-KLM

According to insiders, France and the Netherlands want the airline group Air France-KLM to bring financial aid through the Corona crisis with a total of ten billion euros. The majority of these are state-guaranteed loans.

The French state will now guarantee 90 percent instead of the initially offered 70 percent of the bank loan, said two people familiar with the deliberations by the Reuters news agency on Wednesday. The newspaper La Tribune was the first to report on the higher guarantee. Spokesmen for the airlines and the Ministry of Finance in Paris did not want to comment on this.

(cpm / reuters)

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