The AUA parent Lufthansa has achieved a significant cost reduction through its austerity course in the Corona crisis. “This year we lost two thirds of our sales, but we were able to cut costs by half,” said Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr of “Welt am Sonntag”. Therefore, the liquidity of the group hit hard by the pandemic is “higher than expected”.
Of the nine billion euros in the Corona rescue packages from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium, “we have only called up three billion euros so far and have not yet spent much of it,” said Spohr. In November the airline was able to go on the capital market again itself. The further development in business will show “how much we really need of the nine billion euros”.
There are no signs of a new financial crisis in 2021. “With around ten billion euros available liquidity and sufficient balance sheet reserves, I can rule out over-indebtedness from today's perspective,” said Spohr. Lufthansa had agreed on comprehensive savings packages with the unions in the crisis.
Lufthansa also uses the billion-dollar government loan to significantly increase the pilot's short-time work allowance. Spohr confirmed to “Welt am Sonntag” that, for example, the monthly short-time allowance for ex-A380 captains will be increased from around 5,000 to up to 15,000 euros. With the pure short-time work allowance, the “basic monthly pay would otherwise be more than halved” because a large part of the salary is above the income threshold. “We cannot and will not expect our pilots to do that,” said Spohr.
