Ahhh yes, now it gets interesting. I like it much better like this.
I‘m not in corporate finance, but I can’t let you get away with an unfair advantage ( 🙂 ), so I‘m inviting Mr. Pearce from IATA as my guest speaker:
Link to IATA presentation
I admit that I don’t monitor LH‘s liquidity in detail, so it can be that they are exaggerating, but I know that I can sleep better if I believe IATA when they say that the average cash reserves were good for around two months. (...Of revenues. So that should of course last longer then two months if costs go down)
When I combine that with the fact that LH did so far agree on €0.00 subsidies and add the weak and uncertain outlook, then it still does sound like a slight challenge to me, even before I add refunds.
Yes, can be that consumers are the weakest link, and I don‘t know how much they squeeze out on the other side.
The IATA chart may at least give a hint why US carriers (and SQ) can act in a more customer friendly way, so they won‘t get killed by the DOT. (US Carriers got 1/3 of 2019 revenues as government support vs LH, which until yesterday agreed on nothing. Also AC did not seem to get much so far, which may confirm your perception of how they behave)
Maybe it‘s after all Mrs. Merkel and Mrs. Vestager who dictate how LH behaves to us? [..which would be nice to know. Just to be aware who the chargeback is really going against, and who will support it and who won‘t. 🙂 )