Editor in chief at IamExpat Media
Germany’s largest airline group, Lufthansa, announced on Sunday that it would resume flights to multiple European tourist destinations from mid-June. The airline is currently in talks with the government over a potential bailout.
A Lufthansa spokesperson confirmed on Sunday afternoon that the airline would resume flights to 20 destinations from mid-June onwards, as it struggles to recuperate from the coronavirus pandemic.
The destinations include holiday hotspots such as Mallorca, Crete, Rhodes, Faro, Venice, Ibiza and Malaga, with further destinations to be unveiled by the end of this week. The spokesperson said that all flights will depart from the airline’s main hub at Frankfurt airport.
Earlier this month, the airline group announced that long-haul flights to other international destinations, including Los Angeles, Toronto and Mumbai, would also resume in June.
Travel and border restrictions imposed in response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak have forced Lufthansa to ground 95 percent of its fleet and close its budget subsidiary airline, Germanwings. The hard-hit airline group, which currently employs 138.000 people worldwide, has reportedly placed a question mark over tens of thousands of jobs. In April, it announced that it was losing one million euros per hour.
On Monday, airline bosses agreed to cede a 20 percent stake to the German government, in exchange for a massive cash injection, to the tune of nine billion euros. The deal must now be approved by Lufthansa's advisory board and various other governing bodies, including the European Commission.