Lufthansa Group has repaid all government aid to the German state

Lufthansa Group Yesterday closed earlier Pay government support Awarded in 2020 byGerman state To avoid bankruptcy, in light of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

« Lufthansa (…) has repaid all the money granted to it by the Federal Republic of Germany“, inside ” Much faster than expectedThe German space group reported this in a press release. ” This early repayment shows (…) that our tools have been effectiveGerman Economy Minister Peter Altmaier praised her.

In February, the German airline group had already repaid a 1 billion euro loan from the German public bank KFW and 1.5 billion euros in direct government aid. To finance these payments, it implemented a capital increase of 2.2 billion euros in October and raised 1.5 billion euros in the markets at the beginning of November.

In 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, Lufthansa Group secured an envelope 9 billion eurosIn particular, access to the capital of the German state. But in the end he used only 3.8 billion euros of the aid available to him. In addition, the group has also benefited from aid or secured loans from other European countries as it has subsidiaries in Switzerland with the company. Swiss (1.5 billion Swiss francs, about 1.42 billion euros), in Belgium with Brussels Airlines (290 million euros) and in Austria b Austrian Airlines (450 million euros).

The German state, which still owns 14% of the Lufthansa Group’s capital after increasing it to 20% last year, must now sell all of its shares by October 2023.

The Lufthansa Group launched a savings scheme in 2020 to cut costs in the face of the crisis, including a significant reduction in its workforce. Since then, it has cut more than 30,000 jobs worldwide, out of 140,000, with a goal of saving 3.5 billion euros annually from 2024. In Germany, 3,000 jobs still need to be cut.