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The well-known air taxi start-up Lilium is threatened with bankruptcy. State guarantees amounting to several million euros should help. It was recently said: “Germany and Europe don’t need it”.
Wessling – The future of the air taxi manufacturer Lilium is uncertain and should be decided by the end of the year. The Lilium Jet will be electrically powered and will be able to take off and land vertically. It should be able to fly up to 250 kilometers and reach 280 km/h. But money is tight. Government loans totaling 100 million euros are now intended to lift the company out of the crisis – otherwise the start-up says it is at risk of bankruptcy.
German air taxi company on the verge of bankruptcy? The state should help out with 100 million euros
Lilium, the 2015 from TU München-Founded by graduates, it now has losses of almost 1.5 billion euros without generating any significant income. The operating loss at Lilium, which is based in the immediate vicinity of Munich, is loud Welt in the first half of 2024 to 185.9 million euros. In the same period last year it was 128.5 million euros. In total, the losses amount to 1.446 billion euros. Thanks to a positive revaluation of financial assets, the net loss in the first half of the year amounted to 86.9 million euros. At the end of the second quarter, the company had liquid assets of almost 110 million euros.
However, in the semi-annual report submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the air taxi pioneer warns of bankruptcy. The company is making progress in the development of its electric vertical take-off aircraft, but urgently needs additional capital. If state financial aid, half of which is guaranteed by the federal government and Bavaria and is to be financed via a convertible bond from the KfW state bank, is not forthcoming, there are loud threats Welt drastic cuts in business operations, including the application of “current insolvency law”. Existing investors would invest a further around 30 million euros in the start-up if the loan of 100 million from the federal government and Bavaria goes through.
50 million euros in loans from Bavaria, 50 million from the federal government – but nothing is completely fixed
Bavaria has already promised to assume liability for 50 million euros, but the same amount has not yet been approved by the federal government. The half-year report states that “the group requires additional capital immediately to continue to finance its ongoing operations”. The start-up actually wanted to launch its first manned flight this year, but this was postponed to the beginning of 2025. The market launch was planned for 2026 – but a specific date is no longer mentioned in the latest report.
At the digital summit, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) looks at the prototype of the first flyable “air taxi” – from the manufacturer Lilium (archive image) © Daniel Karmann/dpa
The federal government’s commitment is not yet final: Loud Spiegel there are reservations due to the uncertain economic prospects. In addition, the capital requirement should be between 300 and 500 million euros by 2026, when the planned type approval occurs. And some MPs are also worried because Lilium can apparently only raise more private money with the help of government aid. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) is loud German press agency for a loan guarantee from the federal government because he sees “great potential in this form of air mobility,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Transport in Berlin on Monday.
Lilium points out that foreign competitors are also supported by domestic governments. “All of our international competitors have long since received funding – grants and not loans,” said a Lilium spokesman Spiegel. “There is no successful aircraft program in the aviation industry without government aid.”
This year Lilium said it didn’t need Germany
This summer, Lilium warned that the company could say goodbye to Germany because there were hardly any positive signals coming from German politics. “We don’t need Germany and Europe,” was what management said. A departure from Germany was therefore becoming apparent at that time.
A solution to CO₂ emissions in aviation is urgently needed, because synthetic fuels such as e-fuels do not offer a real alternative. The main reason for this is the high altitudes at which the exhaust gases are emitted, which increases the climate impact. Electric drives could therefore offer a promising path.
