Holiday airline Condor needs fresh money

March 8, 2021, 11:00 p.m.

Frankfurt/Main (dpa) Air travel at Easter will hardly be possible from Germany due to Corona. The permanent lockdown affects the vacation airline Condor, which was only saved by the state last year.

A machine of the airline Condor — A Condor plane is parked on the apron at Düsseldorf Airport.

Around three months after the protective shield proceedings have been concluded, the vacation airline Condor, rescued by the state, needs fresh money.

With reference to the extended corona lockdown and the hesitant demand for flights, the company confirmed on Monday in Frankfurt that it was conducting “constructive exploratory talks” about financial support. It remained unclear whether renewed state aid would also be discussed. The “Handelsblatt” had previously reported.

Last year, Condor averted the impending bankruptcy and left the protective shield proceedings on December 1, 2020, in which it was comprehensively restructured. The former subsidiary of the lost travel company Thomas Cook is held in the air by a trust company with a long-term loan from the state-owned KfW bank.

Of the 550 million euros committed in April 2020, 256 million were used to replace a previously existing short-term KfW loan. The protective shield proceedings under trustee Lucas Flöther are said to have cost around 44 million euros, so that in the end around 250 million euros remained for the Condor as corona aid. An investor should be sought at a later point in time, which could now be preferred.

With a fleet of around 50 aircraft, the company is struggling to resume tourist flights and last year had assumed that Easter business would be brisk, which will now fail. The airline is fighting with the Lufthansa Group over feeder flights to its long-distance flights, whose contractual terms Lufthansa terminated in November. The crane group, which is also supported by the state, wants to push the long-haul tourism business itself.

The company was reconstructed under the protective umbrella and trimmed to lower costs. The number of employees fell by around 700 to 4,200 now. For the rest of them, collective redevelopment agreements were concluded with the unions, with financial losses for the employees. The company has moved its headquarters from Frankfurt Airport to a more affordable property in nearby Neu-Isenburg.