Lufthansa boss hopes: "People have had enough of video conference encounters"

Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr expects a less drastic slump in business travel after the pandemic than previously assumed.

“I had previously assumed a decrease of 10 to 20 percent.

In the meantime I believe that the minus will reach more like 10 than 20 percent, ”said Spohr of the“ Süddeutsche Zeitung ”.

The group expects business travelers to come back very clearly from the third quarter, said Spohr. The longer the crisis lasts, the lower the proportion of trips that are completely replaced by video conferences. “People have had enough of video conference encounters. They want and need to see each other again in person, ”Spohr hopes. According to him, some guests will also use the more expensive Business and Premium Economy classes privately because of the space and comfort offered.

After the deep red figures last year, government aid and job cuts, Lufthansa had also flown in a billion-dollar loss in the first quarter.

For the year as a whole, management expects the group to make fewer losses in day-to-day business than in 2020.

Most recently, Spohr had announced that he wanted to repay the government's billions in aid before the general election on September 26th.

The government's billion dollar bailout package could be history sooner than expected.

“We were one of the first companies that was saved by the federal government.

We also want to be one of the first companies to pay back the rescue funds - hopefully before the general election, ”said Spohr on Friday during the National Aviation Conference in Berlin.

Gender-appropriate language

The federal government, which in addition to loans and silent participation became Lufthansa’s largest shareholder with the rescue operation, wants the state to withdraw “as soon as possible”, said Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU).

With the help, the airline must get back on the road to success as quickly as possible.

"And the state has to get out of there," emphasized the minister.

Lufthansa was in dire straits due to the collapse of passenger flights in the Corona crisis and was supported with a financial framework of nine billion euros from Germany and the countries of its subsidiary airlines.

Germany accounted for a total of 6.8 billion euros of the state rescue package for Lufthansa.

When the package was put together around a year ago, a repayment by 2023 was considered a likely scenario.

However, since then Lufthansa has not had to make use of all available funds and has already been able to repay the KfW loan of over a billion euros, so that the group currently owes the state around one billion euros.

In addition, there is the 20 percent share package that the state economic stabilization fund (WSF) bought for around 300 million euros.

Lufthansa still owes 1.2 billion euros to Switzerland, Austria and Belgium.

Irrespective of this, the Lufthansa Group introduced gender-sensitive language in both internal and external communication on June 1.

The changes are now being implemented gradually, says the representative for equal opportunities at Lufthansa, Timotheus Piechatzek, the “Business Insider”.

The topic of diversity has a long history at Lufthansa, said Piechatzek. "The first company agreement on the subject of equal opportunities came in the 1990s," he says. “The three most important topics were defined: The compatibility of family and work, gender equality and that you want to create a working atmosphere that is characterized by respectful togetherness - regardless of where you come from, how you look and which is sexual You have orientation. "