Liliair is not a real airline. Flight tickets have not been sold until recently, and yet it was announced that up to eight planes would be operated from Klagenfurt and that a million euros would be transferred to Carinthia Airport as an advance payment.

The procedure is quite unusual, because as a "virtual airline" the airport and the ticket seller have little to do with each other. The so-called operating carrier is responsible for the necessary take-off and landing rights and for paying all taxes and fees. Liliair has neither an AOC nor an operating license and is therefore not an airline in the legal sense.

Unless Liliair rents a ticket counter or advertising space at Klagenfurt Airport, there is normally no direct flow of money between the virtual airline and the airport purely from the flights. As already mentioned: The operating carrier has to pay the taxes and fees and has priced these “additional costs” into the charter rates. The fact that a third-party company pays airport fees is absolutely unusual and would certainly put the operating airline in the situation that in the event of non-payment by the "virtual carrier", which is nothing more than a GmbH that offers charter flights and markets the seats on its own account.

The advance payment of EUR 1,7 million announced by the Lilihill Group seems extremely high at first glance. However, if you look at the schedule of fees at Klagenfurt Airport and the costs of ground handling, it quickly becomes clear that the "prepayment" will not last very long. It is also questionable what Liliair actually makes an advance payment for, because in the absence of an AOC and operating license, one is formally not a direct customer of Klagenfurt Airport – apart from renting ticket counters, offices or advertising space. Who is to carry out the Liliair flights is also a kind of "state secret", because the Mesa subsidiary Flite is not yet ready to take off and Greece has not yet announced that it will fly for the Carinthian company. Nevertheless, Liliair announces that they will have up to eight aircraft from Klagenfurt...

The "advance payment" is more likely to be due to the fact that Carinthia Airport found itself in a liquidity bottleneck. The minority shareholders considered a capital increase. Majority owner Franz Orasch was able to circumvent this with a shareholder contribution renamed advance payment. Formally everything may be correct, but a few subtleties of aviation law have probably not been fully thought through. So it remains to be seen what consideration Liliair will actually receive for the advance payment. So far, not a single ticket has been sold via the website and when asked week after week it is said that the time will come by the end of the week and that the final details are being finalized.