If you believe the inquiry form on the Liliair homepage, the first flight should already be carried out next weekend. But you can't book any tickets yet and it is also extremely questionable whether the first flight date will even hold. Meanwhile, at Klagenfurt Airport, politics and Lilihill have once again exchanged blows.
This time it is about the necessary capital increase. The reason for this is that the airport is in an extremely bad financial position. This is also an after-effect of the corona pandemic, because there were no scheduled flights at all at Carinthian Airport for a long time. In general, too, the offer is extremely meager, so that the revenue from passenger air traffic is unlikely to be sufficient to cover the operating costs. Although general aviation is also an important mainstay, it literally does not make the herb fat.
You can twist and turn it as you like: Klagenfurt Airport needs a cash injection in order to be financially prepared for the future. The advance payment announced by Liliair would be just right, but it is questionable what it is actually supposed to be for, because as a so-called virtual airline, one is responsible for the execution of the flights not at all the direct contractual partner of Carinthian Airport. In addition, the contract, which has not yet been approved by the supervisory board, has some clauses that are not exactly commonplace. For example, in the event that the airport is unable to provide the services for which Liliair is not the contractual partner under aviation law, a penalty of three million euros has been agreed. This is therefore significantly higher than that "Prepayment" of 1,7 million euros.
Politicians should forgo the call option
The call option, which the ÖVP, for example, has long wanted to see drawn, is a thorn in Lilihill's side. One would like to take over Klagenfurt Airport completely and already made a corresponding move before the corona pandemic. This was not crowned with success, because the public authorities did not want to give up their minority share. The sword of Damocles "call option" has not yet been drawn because the ÖVP could not find a majority for the project within the state government. Lilihill now wants to tie participation in the necessary capital increase to the fact that the Carinthian state government and the city of Klagenfurt generally refrain from exercising the option.
Of course, there is no such agreement. Such an approach is also not provided for in the action plan, to which Lilihill committed itself last year and was thus able to convince, among others, Governor Peter Kaiser (SPÖ). It is therefore not surprising that members of the ÖVP state parliament, among others, are now speaking of a kind of "attempt at blackmail" by Lilihill. In this regard, reference is made to the fact that the public sector, as a minority shareholder, has already paid its share of the capital increase into the airport company. However, Lilihill, as the majority owner, is said to have not yet transferred the money and is now surprisingly making conditions.
Constant dispute affects Liliair
The events are likely to have an indirect impact on the planned Liliair. In the most recent press release, there was talk of flights to Hamburg and Cologne/Bonn “several times a week” and daily to Frankfurt am Main. With that you have it originally announced flight plan already changed or reduced, because there is no longer any talk of Munich, for example. However, the homepage has not been updated since the launch, so that the presentation of the last media release cannot be reproduced on the Internet.
The sale of airline tickets was not included, despite the fact that the media office always says that the final phase is in progress and that it will be very soon. Who is to operate the "up to eight aircraft" remains a mystery, because the Maltese Mesa offshoot Flite does not yet have an AOC or operating license and it has become very quiet around the recently rumored Marathon Airlines. It therefore remains to be seen how things will continue in Klagenfurt in the next few days, because it is obvious that the ongoing dispute between Lilihill and politics has a direct impact on whether Liliair will ever take off or not.
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