Lufthansa saves itself by downsizing

Lufthansa saves itself by downsizing

Thanks to its austerity course in the Corona crisis, Lufthansa achieved a significant cost reduction. "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 three billion euros so far and haven't spent much of it yet," said Spohr. In November, the airline was also able to go public on the capital market itself. 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 with the unions on comprehensive austerity packages in the crisis. "Among other things, 29,000 employees will have left us by the end of this year, so unfortunately every fifth Lufthansa employee," said the airline boss of "Welt am Sonntag". The goal is to keep 100,000 employees at the company. "But that cannot be full-time jobs in all areas." The airline is also using 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 work 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 do not want to expect our pilots to do that," said Spohr.