Holiday-hungry travelers and airlines didn't have much time to take a deep breath.
Bookings are currently picking up after months of the Corona restrictions, with demands for minimum prices for tickets and an end to domestic German connections, the flight and climate debate that flared up before the pandemic.
Thiemo Heeg
Editor in business.
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Hendrik Kafsack
Business correspondent in Brussels.
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Timo Kotowski
Editor in business.
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Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock wants “climate-friendly taxation” instead of 29 Euro tickets to Mallorca in order to stop “dumping prices”. Short-haul flights - domestic routes seem to be meant - should "no longer exist in the future". SPD candidate Olaf Scholz had previously expressed his preference for minimum prices. No ticket should be cheaper than the airport fees and taxes that apply. Then there will be no flight that costs less than 50 or 60 euros.
The reactions show that the topics of cheap tickets and domestic flights create a special mélange of the mixed up topics.
The vice-chairman of the Bundestag Union faction, Ulrich Lange (CSU), told the editorial network Germany: “It is clear that air traffic must make its contribution to climate protection.
A ban on short-haul flights and massive price increases in air traffic are the wrong way to go. ”The government's tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiß (CDU), warned that climate protection should not be at the expense of the vacation plans of low-income families.
Aviation industry for EU-wide regulation
Meanwhile, the German aviation association BDL reacted with benevolence to Scholz and to Baerbock with criticism of "allegations that do not stand up to a fact check".
The SPD chancellor candidate even receives applause for his demand - but not because of the climate impact.
The local airlines would like to get rid of the hassle that foreign low-cost flight providers like Ryanair keep getting them into trouble with the lowest price quotas.
However, this only happens on international routes, Ryanair no longer flies within Germany.
If you want to prevent cheap tickets, the law has to intervene in the setting of prices, as the federal government actually decided on the 2019 climate protection package, but did not implement it, the BDL announced.
Even better: "In order to avoid that air travel is only started because of extremely cheap prices, the federal government should advocate EU regulation." .
A price comparison by the FAZ shows that there are hardly any cheap tickets for domestic flights.
If you want to travel from Munich to Berlin in a week, you couldn't get a cheap ticket from the train on Monday, you had to pay at least 79.90 euros.
The cheapest Lufthansa flight cost almost three times as much at almost 222 euros.
If you wanted to book a month in advance, you had the chance of a 69 euro flight from Frankfurt to Berlin, with the train there were saver prices for 17.90 euros. Baerbock had said: "If you travel as a family by train, you should pay significantly less than for the short distance on the plane."