behuman

You made my day ! On a more serious note, what I will call "the chargeback guerilla" (brigade is too kind) is really living in another world. We are having in a war like emergency, nothing will be the same as before and we are heading for the deepest depression in modern history.
Loosing some money in those circumstances is just part of life and the "cost of doing business".
It is the same attitude that makes people claim to be repatriated in case of problems at government expense. If you can not afford a loss, do not buy shares, do not pay deposits and most importantly do not travel.

hugolover

Self-appointed okay?

First matter of business, OTD in 1941, Bismarck sunk by Royal Navy. Picture on my office wall please. That shall set the tone of my management style.

Seriously though. There seem to many premium chaps here working for presumably state owned companies in a monopoly position who can afford LH to keep onto their cash forever. Maybe they have actually donated to LH. Rather than putting one side against the other would it not make more sense for those Members premium enough to not care about refunds to help out the “chargeback brigade”? I know the demographics on FT are hideously male but maybe there are a few Grandmas on here who really have struggled since Mr Spohr has kept onto their money? The right thing to do would be to help them out and let LH keep that cash.

Donating M&M balances would be something I would look at. Perhaps for a No-Way O’Leary fund?

Now don’t look at me for cash. I have been at pains to point out time and time again how legacy I am.

vantage03

Bloomberg reporting that the Supervisory Board has just turned down the stabilisation package due to EU Commission’s demands.

Bear96

Is that true from an available seat kilometre basis? I could be wrong but I thought long-haul flights / larger aircraft were better from an emissions standpoint on an ASK basis than short-haul flights.

Also there are greener alternatives like rail available for a lot of short-haul journeys within Europe. Flights across an ocean or to Asia from Europe, not so much.

LondonElite

I think this is a negotiating tactic rather than a blanket refusal.

FlyerLX

Hmm.. The Tagesschau is now saying the same thing- that the supervisory board has rejected the federal government;'s plan for the time being because the impact of the conditions imposed by the Commission needs to be analysed carefully...

All in all I wonder if insolvency as previously touted by CS might be the end point...

The thriller story drags on...

oliver2002

If Condor pulled it off, LH should be able to manage. CS for sure would rather have a administrator weighing in on decisions than some government appointee who thinks in jobs and tries to get LH to only buy EU products

FlyerLX

Hmm... Somehow I think maybe those at the top of LH might always have preferred the "Schutzschirmverfahren" in any case... And with current developments in German politics he might be worried that an agreement made with a OSch now might be torn up after the election in Autumn 21... Or at least that things could be a lot less friendly from then on. The current main government party might be business-friendly enough, but things look different if they're forced to hug trees as the price of a parliamentary majority...

warakorn

If Lufthansa goes down the road of Schutzschirmverfahren (bankcruptcy), essentially Lufthansa is not obliged to issue cash refunds to its pax. I mean Lufthansa has stopped doing so since March, but the number of lawsuit against them are rising.
Many flights going into the summer still has to be cancelled, hitting esp. families who have prepaid their summer longhaul travel.

The reputation of Lufthansa will be tarnished. Most big corporate travel departments will terminate any agreement with Lufthansa, because of non-refunded flight tickets. The travel department will forbid its employees to book flights on Lufthansa Group airlines and instructing its colleagues to hold meetings via webex instead -> this will be the end of the Lufthansa business model (focusing on longhaul corporate travel);

This cannot be the goal of the Lufthansa board.
I guess today's reaction by the Board is done to instruct Angela Merkel to put more pressure onto the EU Commission to waive any concession demands.
It is a game of chess. Its a very risky move, because the SPD may demand a complete new negotiating of the rescue package if Angela Merkel is opening and changing the rescue package. The mood in the German public is turning more and more anti-Lufthansa, esp. because of the underlying "profits are privatized; losses are socialized" mood.

My opinion: Carsten Spohr is overplaying his hand. Today's reaction by the LH Board may backfire on him.

LondonElite

That is not going to happen. The German export-oriented economy relies on a comprehensive route network to the world. LH provides this very well, and there are none necessarily better/any alternatives if you have ruled out LH. As so often on FT, people bite their noses off to spite their face when they declare that the will never fly an airline again (and of course do once the price is right).

Where are you reading this? I have not been made aware of any mobilised protests against LH among the German public.

FlyerLX

I agree. CS is playing at brinkmanship and has been since the start. He got his way more or less with the 20/25% part and 2 "experts" not 2 politicians on the board, so now maybe he judges that if he pushes a bit further, he'll get Commission & co to back down too. He may be successful but it's risky. The red-coloured coalition partner you mention cannot afford to be seen by the German public to back down any further - "profits privatised but losses nationalised" is partly what Mr. Kevin from Berlin has been bemoaning all over the media for some time and yes, people are thinking it can't just be "Give us the cash and shut up". I wish CS luck !

warakorn

Those export-oriented companies probably will have learned during the last 3 months that business will continue to run just fine if corporate travel is trimmed down by 50% or more.
The times of corporate tourism is over ("let's have a 2-day workshop in Shanghai and fly in 30 people").

Well, again I am not sure whether you have read my post carefully. In large corporations it is mostly not the travelling employee who is deciding whether to fly airline A or B or whether to fly at all.
Through tools like Concur the booking of Lufthansa Group flights could be severely curtailed. What do you think the senior mgmt. is going to do if they hear that a vendor is refusing to refund millions of Euros in ticket costs + the vendor has declared bankcruptcy? Do you really think that well-run organization is going to transfer EUR 6000 for a J-ticket to Shanghai on a bankcrupt airline/vendor, where - if the flight is cancelled by the airline - the money is gone? What is going to happen: A policy is to be implemented that an employee wishing to fly on a Lufthansa Group airline needs mgmt. approval from even a higher level + the employee or his department must present an iron-case why the travel is essential and why there are no alternatives. This discourages any employee from booking a Lufthansa Group flight. If travel is essential, the employee is just going to book the flight on a competing airline. If flying from BER, HAM, DUS, HAJ, STR ... there are plenty of other one-stop options to all major global business centers.

warakorn

So to give you any indication -> the "heute show" was running a pretty damning piece on the Lufthansa bailout. Plus, you can see quite a distate of many Bundestag deputies (incl. one from the SPD) via their Twitter feeds. I can continue my monologue here with more examples. People are loosing their jobs and income by the millions. 90% of all Germans have probably never set a foot onto a Lufthansa (core brand) plane in the last 10 years, because Lufthansa core brand is not in the travel package business. Why is the government handing over 9 billion Euros to Lufthansa, where - at the same time - our pension system reform ("Grundrente") is stuck, because the government doesn't know where to get 2-3 billion Euros a year to finance the reform? The "premium brand" image of Lufthansa is not resonating well with the average German.
You will see more sympathy and less resistance in the public for a rescue package if the affected company is closer to the home of the average German (e.g. Opel, Condor, Deutsche Bahn).
There will be plenty of high-ranking SPD politicians who know that they benefit in the next Federal General Election in 16 months if they can claim "We didn't fall for the BS and corporate greed of Lufthansa".

Again, I think that Carsten Spohr is misjudging the level of willingness of Angela Merkel to invest even more of her political capital to reach a "shareholder-friendly" rescue package for Lufthansa. For every concession she wants to gain either from the SPD or the EU Commission, she needs to pay with something else (e.g. Eurobonds, Grundrente). And Angela Merkel has really more important things on her plate right now. And our Federal Transport Minister Andy B'Scheuert cannot help her or Lufthansa, because has zero political capital left at the moment with all the scandals of the past.

warakorn

Here you are:
https://www.airliners.de/proteste-lu...ngspaket/55606



Again I think: With a growing anti-Lufthansa mood and the non-acceptance of the rescue package by Carsten Spohr -> Lufthansa is finished (at least they will go into administration).

hugolover

Seems like the "heute show" have been reading my FT posts.