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German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

businessinsider.com

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Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#111

Post by quaquaqua1 »

optimiz3 wrote: post #93
smoyer wrote: post #48

One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…

Surprised no one has said it so I will: conferences provide a business deductible way to have a nice vacation. Witness how many conferences are in Vegas/Hawaii etc.

Objectively, this is true. Whether the intent is to actually have a conference or not, the real outcome is that employees are A) in a different location and B) the trip is written off as an expense.

Objectively. It is impossible to say that this is not what is happening. It's like saying "The Sun does not shine." It absolutely does shine. We don't know what the motive was for it to shine, but objectively, it is shining.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#112

Post by baq »

StreamBright wrote: post #102
jplayer01 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Create a crappy business, hire 130k employees, and get the state to pay for your failures. Uh ... You'd rather Germany sink 10 billion Euros into an American company with barely any German jobs? Over 60k of those 130k are in Germany. If your plan is to cripple the economy, then yeah, absolutely, let all these companies fail and put all these people out of work for a situation that is in no way their fault and there…

Or let these companies fail and free up the air routes across Europe and create a more efficient company? I do not think that we need to keep bailing out airlines at all. Lufthansa has so many issues, starting with their website, internal problems (try to get an invoice from them), etc. Why do we (the taxpayers) have to pay for their failures of these airlines?

how long does it take to build an efficient airline?

why do you think it won't be a net positive for the tax payer? it's literally the government buying low and selling high when this is over.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#113

Post by optimiz3 »

econcon wrote: post #106
optimiz3 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised no one has said it so I will: conferences provide a business deductible way to have a nice vacation. Witness how many conferences are in Vegas/Hawaii etc.

In India you don't get input tax credit for travel/conferences afaik.

Doing it wrong. Your business buys the conference tickets, travel, and some of the lodging. You stay for an extra week. All you pay for is the hotel.

Business expenses offset revenue reducing profit and in turn taxes.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#114

Post by kilroy123 »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #70
smoyer wrote: post #48

One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…

At least in academia, people usually don't go to conferences to attend the talks - they are uploaded on youtube and you could watch them from home. People go because they are good networking events. That is something which you can't really do online. Edit: of course, a minority of attendees are there to present their work, which can indeed be done online.

Exactly, so many people are missing the point that so many of these events can't just be online and then you call it a day.

It's about building relationships and connections. Not just watching presentations.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#115

Post by puranjay »

smoyer wrote: post #48

One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…

Heck, we've been hosting online improv shows. It's not the real thing but it's fun. Honestly surprised by how quickly we've adopted to the constraints.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#116

Post by econcon »

wiz21c wrote: post #4

Does it mean that every german will have to pay about $10B / 80m = 125 euros for that ? So it means that they'll have, for example, to wait a little longer to buy their next phone, or lunch ? (I ask the question here because that's the kind of reasoning I read in the press but I'd like to know if it's as simple as that)

Not only Germans but whole EU. The way EU works is by letting monopolies in a few west European countries expand their market to east and capture more value from everywhere.

Yes, East European companies can also do that but usually, there is first mover advantage and other policies at local level which influence the ability to form monopoly through investment and expansion.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#117

Post by MattGaiser »

netcan wrote: post #78

For the sake of argument.... What happens if no airline gets any bail-out money? Do we end up with worse air travel in a year or two?

You end up with air travel only between major cities and a lot of government-owned airports which are empty and lose money.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#118

Post by coliveira »

smoyer wrote: post #48

One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…

You probably don't get that conferences exist for personal interaction, not just to present technical information. In fact I believe that business travel is what will support the travel industry, since most people will be afraid to take their families on travel without a clear necessity.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#119

Post by GordonS »

notahacker wrote: post #61
tasubotadas wrote: post #33

>The company will take the money but the state won't get a say: this is a concise summary of what Lufthansa's Executive Board, headed by CEO Carsten Spohr, has been telling German politicians in the past few weeks. That's awesome. Create a crappy business, hire 130k employees, and get the state to pay for your failures. At this point, I would be happier that they would just give the money to Google and Facebook which…

Ryanair isn't 'doing fine', it's trying to force customers to accept vouchers instead of the cash refunds it is legally obliged to provide. And the idea that Google and Facebook could do a good job of maintaining the profitability of an airline whilst being obliged to pay the capital costs of aircraft it's banned from flying is the epitome of Silicon Valley arrogance. Let's be honest, Google and Facebook haven't even…

Can confirm, they have £1k of my money, which they've held on to for over a month already, and are refusing to refund. It looks like it will be several months at best before they refund it. I plan to do a chargeback in the meantime.

I get that Ryanair are in financial difficulties, but they can't expect their customers to bail them out, and are behaving unlawfully - I'm damn sure I wouldn't get away with it, so neither should they.

Re: German government to bail Lufthansa out of bankruptcy with nearly $10B state aid

#120

Post by econcon »

longtermd wrote: post #9
wiz21c wrote: post #4

Does it mean that every german will have to pay about $10B / 80m = 125 euros for that ? So it means that they'll have, for example, to wait a little longer to buy their next phone, or lunch ? (I ask the question here because that's the kind of reasoning I read in the press but I'd like to know if it's as simple as that)

Nope. Because they have already paid all of this in taxes. It means, that the 10 bn won't get 'invested' by the government in another project, e.g., welfare benefits, infrastructure, health, or education. Alternatively, it means: nothing of all of those, but inflation will rise an additional 0.0001% (if the funding source is printing money vs. using tax payer money)

Airline is the infrastructure tho, cheap air travel is available throughout EU. If you remove that, economy will take major hit. There is hardly any reading block with cooperation like EU. You fly from France to Italy and work with people there then you fly to Switzerland and demonstrate your product their and then you deal with marketing agency in UK to market your products at global level. It becomes inefficient without cheap air travel.
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