Airports in crisis: direct help only for larger airports

The federal government is planning extensive new state aid for German airports. However, only regional airports with a higher number of passengers will receive direct support.

The pandemic hit German airports hard: now the federal government has agreed on the details of an aid package for the industry. Only regional and larger airports should receive direct assistance.

As announced by Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer, the 15 most important airports in Germany will be supported by the state with a total of more than 600 million euros. According to the German Press Agency, the airports of Bremen, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Erfurt, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hannover, Leipzig, Münster / Osnabrück, Nuremberg, Saarbrücken and Stuttgart will receive one-off grants. They must be reimbursed for the costs they incurred at the beginning of the pandemic to remain open. The federal government wants to contribute 200 million euros for this. The federal government itself does not participate in these places.

The support package also includes aid of more than 400 million euros for the three airports Berlin-Brandenburg, Cologne / Bonn and Munich, in which the federal government participates. In addition, the federally owned Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH will receive capital support of € 300 million in the current year.

Countries must participate in aid

For the funds to flow, the respective federal states must also pledge a grant of the same amount. Also, no dividends or bonuses may be paid to CEOs and board members during the last year. This should affect, for example, the publicly traded Fraport AG, the operator of Germany’s largest airport in Frankfurt.

For small airports only fee exemption

However, for even smaller regional airports, there should be no direct financial support. They should only be exempt from charges for air navigation services that cannot always be passed on to airlines. In the 2021 budget, 20 million euros are earmarked for this support measure.

The fact that smaller regional airports are no longer receiving aid is likely related to their lack of profitability even before the outbreak of the pandemic. Kassel-Calden Airport is an extreme example. Here was that ARD–Magazine More less reports that from January to October last year only 27,000 passengers were transported. While the taxpayer in Calden had raised a good 130 euros per passenger in 2018, it was already 650 euros in 2020. The airport crisis had recently reached a critical point.

Many regional airports can hardly be operated profitably because they are so close to each other. From Kassel-Calden, for example, Paderborn airport is less than an hour away by car, although last year it had fewer than 100,000 passengers.