Lufthansa
The European Commission on Tuesday stated the French government is allowed to contribute €4 billion to help keep Air France afloat.
In February, Ryanair lost a legal fight in the EU General Court against state aid being granted to Air France and Sweden's SAS through national schemes. Ryanair is still seeking to contest the German government's bailout of Lufthansa, as well as similar schemes in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.
Airport service workers from Lufthansa Technik have refused to service a Boing 737 plane that belongs to the self-proclaimed president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. They stated that "We, Lufthansa Technik’s activists, do not forget the long tradition of international solidarity and stand side by side with Belarusian workers" and added that "the same Lukashenko that gave the order to shoot at demonstrators in Belarus".
AUA parent Lufthansa is making progress with the reimbursement of cancelled tickets from the Corona crisis. In the current year, the group has now returned 2.5 billion euros to 5.6 million customers, the group announced on Friday. However, this still leaves 1.2 million applications open, with a volume of around 600 million euros.
In the past seven days, 20,000 cases were settled daily, according to the company. If things had continued at the same pace without new cancellations, the applications would have been cleared in 60 days. The Group had announced that it would settle the cases from the first half of the year by the end of August.
According to EU law, airlines are obliged to refund the ticket price within seven days if they initiate cancellations. Following the collapse of air traffic in March, Lufthansa switched off automatic refund processes and insisted on individual case reviews.
Boeing CEO, Dave Calhoun, has announced Wednesday the company will end production of the 747 in 2022. Boeing will keep producing the aircraft at a rate of one every two months until the programme ends, with the US president’s Air Force One expected to be one of the last deliveries.
According to analysts, the end of the 747 programme has been hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has put Boeing’s customers under even greater pressure and forced them to re-evaluate the usage of planes that rely on hundreds of passengers to be profitable.
Qantas, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Lufthansa already decided for the retirement of their 747 fleets.
Lufthansa shareholders voted in favour of a €9 billion bailout from the German government on Thursday, following a tense week in which Heinz Hermann, the company's most significant shareholder, threatened to block the deal.
"We have no more money," Chairman Karl-Ludwig Kley told shareholders. "We are living from the reserves we set aside. Without support, bankruptcy looms in the next few days."
Ryanair announced it plans to challenge the deal through European courts.
Starting on early July Lufthansa plans to offer Covid-19 tests at airports in Frankfurt and Munich. An outsourced company will conduct the tests, and results will be available within four hours.
Der Spiegel reports Lufthansa is seeking a €10 billion bailout that would give the German government a massive stake (25.1%) in the airline.
According to the news magazine, the government will hold over half of the stake — €5.5 billion — as a silent partner, for which they will receive a guaranteed return of 9%, and the state-owned development bank Kreditanstalt for Wiederaufbau (KFW) will also contribute another €3.5 billion.
The German flag carrier has said it is losing €1 million an hour due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as it is currently flying around 1% of its normal flight schedule.