In a current guest commentary, Frank Benz, who worked for many years as a flight attendant and in other functions at airlines before founding his own company, deals with the piquant topic of "state aid".

Dear politicians,

when can we taxpayers finally have a say in how our money is burned?

The airline industry is not having an easy time of it at the moment. New entry restrictions and restrictions on a daily basis make regular flight operations seem almost impossible. In addition, the incalculable demand and the associated risks can represent a high financial risk for the individual airlines.

Many "systemically important" carriers could already fall back on state aid - others did not get it and had to cease flight operations. For me personally, it is incomprehensible how some airlines are budgeting for state aid. For the opening of the airport, a machine is specially foiled or long-haul machines are repainted with the new CI after 4 years "for technical reasons".

I myself run a small company in the aviation sector, which has to generate sales every day in order to pay employees and taxes - without our being able to hope for help from the state.

I therefore admire every airline that has managed to stay in the air for years without government aid. For example, SUNDAIR started flight operations in 2017 and has developed into a constant player in the charter & niche market over the past 3 years. In particular, the flights between Düsseldorf and Berlin to Beirut have now become part of the core business of the German airline. Due to global restrictions, however, SUNDAIR was also required to reduce flight operations with up to 7 Airbuses.

Of course, in this situation in particular, it is common for airlines to look to see where the “competition” has their profitable routes in order to perhaps participate in them themselves? ... and the Düsseldorf-Beirut and Berlin-Beirut routes are being launched by the “cheap subsidiary” of the state-supported parent company to make things a little more difficult for the private airline. It does not matter that since the beginning up to 6 rotations have been flown a week with a maximum occupancy of 16,6% on average. Every single flight generates a minus of approx. € 20.000.

When airberlin was grounded, a loan of 150 million had to be enough to “wind up” the airline. At the National Carrier, you were allowed to report a loss of 6,3MRD within ¾ year - and just keep going!

Today I received the information that there is another German holiday airline that also operates with air buses and has received a not inconsiderable amount of state aid. This now also intends to offer flights to Beirut from Berlin ...

Where is this going to lead? ... can it be allowed at all that carriers “sponsored” with state aid are allowed to “burn” our tax money in order to force airlines that (have to) get along without help from the market?

In my opinion, politicians should react very quickly here to prevent us from being “allowed” to support “a bottomless pit” with additional tax billions!

This guest comment was written by: Frank Benz.

Frank Benz is co-founder and CEO of blackforest AVIATION GmbH. A company that focuses on customer aircraft demand management and trading in inflight supplies. Before that he was employed as a cabin crew instructor and president of the employee representatives at belair Airlines. This was followed by activity as Charter Sales Manager at SkyWork Airlines in Bern until it ceased operations. In addition to nature and traveling, his interests lie primarily in civil aviation in the D / A / CH area.