The German airline Condor, which will shortly receive its first two Airbus A330neos, expects demand for leisure flights to remain strong despite high inflation. Company boss Ralf Teckentrup also announces that the state aid will be repaid by 2026.
Among other things, the manager said to the Handelsblatt: “We can see that we can also realize the prices in winter that we need for our earnings targets. And I think it's going to be a very sensible summer of 2023." The pent-up demand for holidays that arose due to the corona pandemic would still not have materialised. Teckentrup believes that Germans will continue to be able to travel, but he expects inflation to reduce the average travel time from two weeks to ten days.
In the coming year, Condor intends to continue repaying the loans granted by the Federal Republic of Germany via the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau. "As soon as we have repaid 175 million euros of our aid loan to the state-owned KfW bank, the remaining shares will go to Attestor," Teckentrup told the Handelsblatt. The investor currently holds 51 percent, while the public sector is on board with 49 percent via an investment company.
Condor has repeatedly received government loans. First, the government grabbed the carrier's flights in the wake of the Thomas Cook collapse. Then, after the collapse of the PGL deal, money was received again, and later there was more money due to the corona pandemic. All grants and loans have been approved by the EU Commission. The holiday airline received a total of 525 million euros, which you have to pay off.