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Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) wants to massively restrict air traffic to Germany in order to combat the corona pandemic and also introduce stricter border controls.

"The threat posed by the numerous virus mutations demands that we also examine drastic measures and discuss them in the federal government," said Seehofer on Tuesday of the "Bild".

"This includes much stricter border controls, especially at the borders with high-risk areas, but also the reduction of air traffic to Germany to almost zero, as Israel is currently doing to prevent the introduction of the virus mutation," said the minister.

People in Germany expected "that we will protect them as best as possible from an explosion in the number of infections".

Chancellor Angela Merkel also addressed possible travel restrictions at the meeting of the Union parliamentary group on Tuesday.

According to reports from the participants, the Chancellor wants to restrict tourist travel even more.

"Everyone sees that it is not the hour in which we are traveling now," said Merkel, according to the participants.

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In the parliamentary group meeting, Merkel expressed her lack of understanding of the ongoing cross-border travel.

"We ask a lot from the citizens," the Chancellor was quoted as saying by participants.

For their part, citizens could therefore expect that they would be protected “by certain precautions at the border”.

According to information from "Bild", Merkel had made a similar statement the day before in an internal video conference with the parliamentary group leaders of the Union in the federal and state levels.

During controls at Frankfurt Airport, for example, the police recently found more than 100 violations of the Corona entry regulations.

For example, the required entry registration or proof of negative corona tests were missing, as the federal police announced.

More than 4000 passengers from Corona hotspots were checked on Sunday and Monday, almost 130 of them violating the entry regulations.

Air traffic 67 percent below the previous year's level

The Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry initially did not want to comment on the news from Berlin.

"We are not commenting on this at the moment," said a spokesman for the umbrella association of German airlines, airports and air traffic control in response to a request from WELT.

The aviation industry is already in its greatest crisis and, after the massive slump in 2020 with travel restrictions, had the hope of a slightly better capacity utilization again.

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At a presentation by the Eurocontrol air traffic control, it was recently pointed out that air traffic within Europe is currently 67 percent below the previous year's level.

In mid-January there were an average of only 416 arrivals and departures per day at the largest German airport in Frankfurt, a decrease of 67 percent compared to the previous year.

For example, Lufthansa only handled 204 flights on January 20, a decrease of 86 percent.

Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr recently admitted that less than twenty percent of the flight capacities were in operation in the first quarter.

However, he firmly assumes that there will be an upswing again in the summer with more vaccinations and corona tests.

Lufthansa has already cut 29,000 jobs during the crisis

Open criticism comes from the German travel association.

Tourist travel has already come to an almost complete standstill due to the restrictions in the pandemic.

The business travel sector is also down.

“The Federal Government should also take note of this.

It should therefore not concentrate on restricting our already severely restricted freedom of travel even further ”, demanded the DRV.

Rather, the government should remedy the “dramatic deficits” in vaccination and present sensible test concepts.

"In addition, in the public debate, the Federal Government should urgently remember that freedom of travel is a fundamental right - not a privilege that should be granted politically."