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Passenger jet over Mallorca (symbol picture): the favorite island of the Germans is filling up again rapidly.
Photo: Clara Margais / dpa
Palm trees soar into the sky over Palma, sailboats float in the harbor - and next to the photo there is a no less tempting special offer for the Germans' favorite holiday island.
»Book flights to Mallorca from € 12.99«, advertises Ryanair on its website.
Who can say no to that: now that the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has removed Mallorca from the list of risk areas?
But the mall bargain will not be there for the Germans, who are unnerved by the permanent shutdown - at least not over the Easter holidays.
On this Monday noon, the only Ryanair flight over Easter from Düsseldorf-Weeze to Palma did not cost 12.99 euros.
But 296.98 euros there and back - plus 83.98 euros for a suitcase.
And that should be one of the cheaper offers for German would-be vacationers.
From Hamburg on Maundy Thursday and back on Easter Monday?
Costs 444.98 euros at Condor - without checked baggage.
Eurowings charges at least EUR 569.98 for Düsseldorf-Palma-Düsseldorf on the same travel dates.
On the Frankfurt route, the return flight with TUIfly "only" costs EUR 349.00.
However, the passengers first have to fly to Madrid with the Spanish Air Europa and change there to the Palma plane.
"The bookings have skyrocketed - from one second to the next."
Condor communications chief Magdalena Hauser on the RKI decision to remove Mallorca from the list of risk areas
A week ago, such tickets were available for a fraction of the price.
But the Mallorca market has been upside down since Friday.
"When the RKI officially announced the decision, the bookings skyrocketed - from one second to the next," said Magdalena Hauser, Head of Communications at Condor, the SPIEGEL.
And Matthias Eberle from Eurowings says: "After the announcement, we experienced a dynamic that our booking tax radars have never seen before." Entire machines were fully booked within a short period of time.
Millions of Germans thirst for relaxation, for variety, for a little sun, at the end of this depressing Corona winter.
You don't want anything like going away.
And Mallorca seems like the ideal place of refuge: known, predictable - and the only foreign holiday destination on the Condor flight plan that is not in a risk area.
That means: as things stand today, returns do not have to be quarantined
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Run on Malle: Passengers check in at Hamburg Airport for a Palma flight.
Mallorca returnees no longer have to be in quarantine since Sunday: because of the low incidence figures on the island
Photo: Markus Scholz / dpa
But the flight capacities are limited.
In the pandemic, airlines have canceled connections to Mallorca in a row.
The sudden run on the tickets makes the few available seats increasingly scarce and expensive.
"We and other airlines have dynamic booking systems, the prices here are based on supply and demand," says Condor spokeswoman Hauser.
“The cheap flights were sold out very quickly.” Algorithms in airline booking systems are often programmed to automatically raise tariffs when machines fill up quickly.
Bookings more than five times as high as normal
Why should the airlines charge less?
They get their jets full either way.
Both Condor and Eurowings have drastically increased their Mallorca offer since the RKI announcement.
Condor now flies to the island from eight instead of four German airports.
Eurowings is now offering 300 additional Palma connections until the end of the Easter holidays.
"That was a quick action," says spokesman Eberle.
But it is worthwhile for his company: "These flights continue to sell at a previously unknown dynamic." On average in Germany, Mallorca bookings are more than five times as high as at normal times.
And the margins are good at these prices.
The Mallorca Run is a ray of hope for the pandemic-plagued airlines.
You can reactivate some decommissioned jets that take one or the other employee out of short-time work for at least a few weeks - and get some money into the empty coffers.
If the rush to the island continues, Eurowings and Condor could further increase their offer: there are still more than enough mothballed machines.
But consumers shouldn't hope for cheap tickets.
"We only operate margin-positive flights," says Hauser.
"Anyone who has borrowed money from the state cannot fly half-empty through world history."
If you want to get a reasonably cheap ticket now, you have to be flexible with the travel dates and the place of departure - and be lucky.
In addition, it is not enough to just take a flight.
In the case of accommodation and rental cars in Mallorca, it could be as close as it is expensive.
On top of that there are the costs for the obligatory PCR test, which the Spanish government requires of all people who come into the country by air or sea.
In return, you save expenses for the nightlife: clubs are closed, drinking bouts on the street are strictly forbidden, Ballermann parties are a wet dream.
This is likely to lure some wealthy travelers to the island even more.
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