It is seldom with large airlines that the boss expresses himself personally when individual routes are served again.

But to relax the corona entry rules for the United States, the CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr, takes the floor.

He speaks of a “big step out of the crisis”, of “excellent news for the transatlantic partnership”.

Families and friends should finally meet again, business partners develop their relationships personally again.

The easing should also be good for Lufthansa: America flights were important revenue guarantors before Corona.

Mark Fehr, Hendrik Ankenbrand, Timo Kotowski, Julia Löhr, Tillmann Neuscheler and Winand von Petersdorff report.

On Monday evening, the American government announced that vaccinated people from Europe would be allowed to re-enter from November.

For airlines, this is linked to the prospect of an increase in traffic across the Atlantic and rising ticket revenues.

So far, they have been allowed to carry almost only Americans, freight and a few Europeans with special permits.

In the German economy, too, the relief after around 20 months of the restrictions is great.

"This will remove the currently biggest hurdle in bilateral trade from November," said Ulrich Ackermann, head of foreign trade in the mechanical engineering association VDMA.

The industry was particularly affected by the entry ban because not only customer meetings, but also repairs and maintenance work on machines in the USA were only possible with weeks of waiting or not at all.

The German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) puts the economic damage of the Travel Ban on German companies at "double-digit billions," said the association's head of foreign trade, Volker Treier.

Some details on the new rules are still missing

The last details to facilitate travel are still missing. What is certain is that travelers to the United States must prove that they are fully vaccinated - fully in accordance with the criteria of the American Disease Protection Agency (CDC). These are met after vaccinations with the substances from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer / BioNTech. In addition, according to the CDC, people who have been immunized with vaccines from the World Health Organization's emergency list will be admitted: These include products from AstraZeneca, Sinopharm (China) and Serum Institute (India). The status of people who have combined vaccines is unclear.

In any case, the last vaccination appointment must be at least two weeks ago, and all passengers must also show a negative test that is not older than three days upon arrival.

Airlines wants to instruct the CDC to register passengers' phone numbers and email addresses for a new tracking system.

Flight association complains about permanent hurdles

For those who have not been vaccinated, the new rules will tighten them: As a rule, they will not be able to enter the country at all.

According to the current status, this also applies to unvaccinated children.

In addition, the path to the US will be almost impossible for citizens from countries where they do not have access to vaccines.

The international airline association IATA points this out.

His demand: accept negative tests as entry permits and concentrate tests on unvaccinated travelers instead of requiring them from the vaccinated.

"We have to come to a position in which freedom of travel is available again for everyone," says IATA boss Willie Walsh.

How long will the catching up wave last?

In both business and private life, there is a need to catch up when it comes to crossing the Atlantic.

"For the German economy, the USA is the largest sales market and at the same time the third largest supplier market," said Wolfgang Niedermark, member of the executive board of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).

"With around 860,000 jobs, German companies are the third largest foreign employer in the USA."

The flight search Skyscanner reported on Tuesday that after the relaxation message within an hour, data traffic from flight inquiries had increased by 28 percent. The USA is currently in second place among all target countries for searches from Germany.