Lufthansa received state aid in the Corona crisis, but refunds to customers are still hesitant. Now she is being criticized by the federal government.
- Lufthansa received financial help from the state in the Corona * crisis.
- Now, however, the federal government has criticized the company.
- The reason is the hesitant reimbursement of tickets to customers.
Berlin - The Federal Government of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has sharply criticized Lufthansa for the hesitant reimbursement of flights canceled due to corona. "It is incomprehensible that Lufthansa, despite massive government aid, has not yet met its legal obligations and does not immediately repay customers their money," said State Secretary for Economic Affairs Ulrich Nussbaum the Spiegel. Lufthansa stated that it had "the best contact" with the government on the subject of reimbursement.
Corona: criticism of Lufthansa after billions in aid - "question of trust"
Nussbaum also said that it was a "question of trust" . The topic had already been discussed during the negotiations on the aid package and was "very important" to the federal government. The state secretary had negotiated with Lufthansa on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs for around nine billion euros in government aid to deal with the Corona crisis. Der Spiegel quoted from a current statement by the company for the Federal Aviation Office. Accordingly, the airline only processed 3.24 million of 4.48 million refund applications. 1.24 million applications are therefore still open. At the subsidiary Eurowings , only around half of the 378,000 applications for reimbursement have been processed.
According to Spiegel, the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt has already initiated administrative offense proceedings against Lufthansa. After the company had provided the authority with initial information about the lack of reimbursements, the authorities consider a fine of between half a million and one million euros to be appropriate.
It's good that #Luftfahrtbundesamt and @BMWi_Bund are working here. Consumers have the right to a quick refund - hesitant ticket refunds: #Lufthansa annoys federal government https://t.co/g3DcBDEzmJ via @derspiegel
- Sebastian Steineke (@SsteinekeCDU) August 8, 2020Corona: Refunds by Lufthansa - more than two billion euros already paid out
The Lufthansa had announced for the end of July, the automated refund systems back on. Previously, the applications had been processed individually, which was time-consuming. A Lufthansa spokeswoman emphasized that more than two billion euros in reimbursement had already been paid out for the entire Lufthansa Group in 2020, and that flights from March and April had largely been processed. Less than a billion euros in reimbursements are still outstanding.
According to European passenger law, the refund for canceled flights must actually be made within seven days of notification of the cancellation. This applies not only to European airlines, but to every booking of a flight with a departure point in an EU country. Customers do not have to accept the vouchers issued by airlines after the Corona-related cancellations. If you reject the voucher, you retain your right to reimbursement. Almost no airline has adhered to these regulations in recent months. Consumer advocates even accused Lufthansa of "intent"; the company is playing for time.
Criticism of Lufthansa after Corona aid: airline reimbursement practices vary widely
By the end of July, the Arbitration Board for Public Transport (SÖP) had received 18,000 applications for extrajudicial clarification of passenger claims, as reported by Welt am Sonntag. There are also 3200 complaints from rail customers. The number of cases rose by 52 percent compared to the previous year. SÖP boss Heinz Klewe told the newspaper that an agreement would be reached in 90 percent of the cases.
According to an evaluation of 54,000 cases by the legal service provider Fairplane, the reimbursement practice of the airlines is very different, as Die Welt am Sonntag reported: Easyjet customers have already been compensated in 96 percent of all cases, followed by Austrian Airlines with 58 percent and Singapore Airlines with 39 Percent. According to the report, Laudamotion is at the bottom of the scale with two percent and its parent company Ryanair with five percent. The Lufthansa subsidiaries Eurowings and Swiss come to four and five percent respectively.
Video: Lufthansa rescued: Shareholders agree to state entry
Due to the corona pandemic, Lufthansa rushed deep into the red in the second quarter of the financial year. With the planned downsizing, the group no longer rules out redundancies for operational reasons. ( kam / dpa ) * Merkur.de is part of the Ippen digital network.