October 31, 2020
19:28
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The Dutch government refuses to keep the airline company KLM straight with an emergency loan. She demands that the staff surrender wages for five years, but the pilots’ union does not want to know about this.
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The government support with which the Netherlands wanted to guide the airline company KLM through the corona crisis will not take place for the time being. In a letter to the House of Representatives, the Dutch government has announced that it has temporarily stopped the payment of an immediate emergency loan of 1 billion euros. Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra (CDA) says he does not want to give any more money if not all KLM employees hand in their salary for five years. The VNV pilot union refuses to agree to a wage reduction and so the government is pulling the plug on the aid package.
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The KLM management has already announced that it will not stand it without government support. KLM, like many other airlines, is facing serious financial problems now that international air traffic has largely come to a standstill due to the corona virus. Without state aid, the company employs 30,000 people almost certainly bankrupt.
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What we do is in the interest of the Netherlands, but it must be in balance. It is about taxpayers’ money.
Wopke Hoekstra
Dutch Minister of Finance
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KLM was able to receive 3.4 billion euros in state aid from the Dutch government over the next five years, but the company will have to during that period make substantial savings. By stopping payments, the Dutch government is putting pressure on the pilot union, which is the only one that is still obstructing. Cabin crew and aviation technicians have already agreed to surrender wages for five years.
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“I think their attitude is risky for the continued existence of the company,” wrote Minister Hoekstra, after consultations between the management and VNV came to nothing on Saturday. ‘What we do is in the interest of the Netherlands, but it must be in balance. It is about taxpayers ‘money.’
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Hoekstra does not yet want to speak of the bankruptcy of the airline that is part of the Dutch-French group Air-France KLM. KLM still has some money. “But they can no longer broadcast it for months,” Hoekstra told the Dutch public broadcaster NOS.
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