Las aerolíneas alemanas reactivarán los vuelos de vacaciones en junio

Informe semanal de noticias Oficina de Turismo de Tenerife en Fráncfort

Market news:

• Customers should be reimbursed for travel vouchers: Anyone who has already accepted a voucher for a package tour should be able to return it, according to the will of the federal government. According to fvw, this is the result of a bill passed by the cabinet on Wednesday, which will now be dealt with by the Bundestag. Last week, the cabinet had already decided on the key points of the new regulations, which the Ministry of Justice has now formulated in detail. According to the new rules, package travelers will be able to claim their money back if their vacation is cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. There will not be an originally planned voucher requirement, which was intended to help avoid insolvency. However, consumers can voluntarily choose a voucher, the value of which is guaranteed by the state even if suppliers go bankrupt.
• DRV criticizes federal government: While travel agencies demonstrated outside for a rescue fund, the federal government discussed travel industry issues on Wednesday, reports TRL COUNTER. However, the lifting of the global travel warning on June 15th, as envisaged by Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, was not on the agenda. The topic, which is so important for the industry, was postponed until June 3rd, following an objection from Bavaria. «The basis for the discussion about lifting travel warnings should be the actual occurrence of infection and not domestic political considerations», said President Norbert Fiebig. He said that infection cases in many European destination areas were at a consistently low level and that this should be the basis for decisions. Incidentally, the number of actively infected persons in Austria, Croatia and Greece together is lower than in the state of Bavaria.
• DRV is demanding millions in subsidies for the travel industry: «We have to admit that up to now we have been dealing with politically omitted assistance,» criticized the General Manager of the DRV travel association, Dirk Inger. The industry with 2,300 tour operators and 11,000 travel agencies as well as many tourism service providers, is on the verge of collapse, reports fvw. The DRV is demanding non-repayable bridging subsidies totaling 260 million euros per month for travel agencies and tour operators until business has restarted. In addition, the association considers a restart credit of around 500 million euros in total for travel agencies. In the view of the DRV, a credit fund worth billion is also necessary, from which customer funds for cancelled trips can be repaid.

Aviation News:

• Lufthansa postpones decision on rescue package: According to fvw, the airline’s supervisory board on Wednesday postponed the decision to accept the state rescue package of nine billion euros. The company cited possible conditions imposed by the EU Commission in Frankfurt as the reason for the postponement, which could review take-off and landing rights at various airports in the event of state aid. This would weaken the hub function at the home airports of Frankfurt and Munich, the supervisory boards argue, and want to examine the possible consequences and alternative scenarios. So far, only insolvency in self-administration has been mentioned as a so-called protective shield procedure for this purpose.
  
  
• Lufthansa Group significantly extends June timetable: The airlines in the Lufthansa Group are significantly expanding their services in the second half of June compared with the previous weeks. As in the first half of June, the focus will be on summer tourist destinations. The aim is to make as many destinations as possible accessible for holidaymakers and business travelers and thus expand the European and intercontinental network for holidaymakers and business travelers.
  
  Starting from June15th, Lufthansa alone will be resuming around 20 German and European destinations from Frankfurt and as many as 34 from Munich, thus supplementing the airline’s flight schedule, which has been growing steadily for a few weeks. These include attractive holiday destinations as Dubrovnik, Faro, Venice, Ibiza and Malaga from Frankfurt. Additionally, Porto, Split, Cyprus, Biarritz and Agadir and many more from Munich. Furthermore, the weekly accessibility of already existing and highly demanded destinations, such as Mallorca or Sylt, will be increased. As a result, Lufthansa’s flight schedule will grow from around 500 to almost 900 weekly connections at the Frankfurt and Munich hubs during the course of June.
  
  The Lufthansa Group airlines are thus responding to the growing interest of customers in air travel as travel restrictions and entry rules in various countries have gradually ben relaxed. This includes the German government’s planned lifting of travel advisories and restrictions for more than 31 European countries. With 2,000 weekly connections to more than 130 destinations worldwide, the variety of travel opportunities available to all Lufthansa Group travelers will be greatly extended with immediate effect, subject to any travel restrictions. The additional flights for the second half of June were implemented in the booking systems yesterday, 28 May, and are thus bookable. All destinations can be booked on lufthansa.com or on the websites of the respective Group carriers.
  
  In addition, 34 long-haul destinations are now also available again in the Lufthansa Group airlines’ flight schedules. In total the airlines now offer around 112 weekly connections to destinations outside Europe.
  
  Lufthansa’s additional long-haul return flights from Frankfurt in detail: Cairo (Egypt), Beijing, Shanghai (both in China) and San Jose (Costa Rica).
  
  Lufthansa’s additional long-haul return flights from Munich in detail: San Francisco (USA), Delhi (India), Montreal (Canada) and Seoul (South Korea).
  
  
• The flight schedules of the Lufthansa Group’s airlinesare closely coordinated, enabling reliable connectivity to European and intercontinental destinations via the hubs.
  • On 15 June 2020, Austrian Airlines aircraft will resume regular flights after a break of almost 90 days. Subject to new official restrictions, the airline will thus take off to 37 destinations in the first two weeks of the new start. 
  • SWISS plans to increase its services to Italy, and will resume services from Zurich to Brindisi, Florence, Naples, Palermo, Rome and other destinations in the second half of the month. From Geneva, SWISS passengers will again be able to fly to Faro and Nice, among other destinations.  SWISS will continue to serve some ten long-haul destinations.
  • Eurowings will be substantially expanding its timetable from June onwards, adding 40 new European destinations to its schedule. The fleet will be doubled to up to 20 Airbus aircraft by the end of June. One focus of the expansion of the flight schedule is on connections to Europe’s most popular sunny islands Mallorca, Sylt and Heringsdorf as well as holiday destinations such as Greece and Croatia. 
  • From 15 June, Brussels Airlines will resume flight operations and offer a route network of 59 destinations between June and August.
  • In accordance with the entry regulations of the respective countries, Edelweiss will continuously expand its flight offerings in the coming weeks. By the end of June, it is currently planned to operate 171 flights to 36 holiday destinations. It is also planned to operate the first long-haul flights on a regular basis again.
  • Air Dolomiti has already announced the resumption of flight operations with new domestic connections. The Group airline will be operating its first flights from Florence to Catania and Palermo from 5 June and from 19 June to Bari and Cagliari.
    
    
• German leisure airlines will relaunch holiday flights in June: Germany’s main leisure airlines are preparing to take off to major holiday destinations from next month as international tourism starts to warm up again after a three-month deep-freeze during the worst of the corona crisis. Fvw reports that 
  • Condor has published its slimmed-down summer 2020 flight schedule, which will go into effect from June 25 onwards. The airline will operate 300 weekly flights from eight German airports (Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Munich, Hamburg, Hanover, Stuttgart, Leipzig/Halle and Berlin-Schönefeld) to 29 destinations initially. 
  • As an integrated part of TUI Germany, TUIfly is in a different position. The airline is looking at taking off again in July, probably initially to Greece once resorts re-open there for foreign tourists. 
  • Sun Express, the Turkish Airlines/Lufthansa joint venture, is also planning a gradual resumption of flights as it is unclear when Turkey will re-open fully for international tourism. Commercial manager Peter Glade said the first flights from Germany could be in June, followed by gradual expansion in July and August.

Tour operator:

• Former Cook travel agencies of Galeria Reisen are insolvent: Insolvency proceedings have been filed for the 106 former Thomas Cook travel agencies belonging to Karstadt Kaufhof, reports TravelTalk. According to information from the service company Verdi, 440 employees are affected by the insolvency proceedings. It is not clear if also other Galeria travel agencies are at risk. The parent company Karstadt Kaufhof is in a protective shield proceeding. It is expected that up to 80 of the 170 stores will not survive the upcoming restructuring.
• The end for JT Touristik: According to TRVL COUNTER, Lidl says goodbye to the tour operator business. JT Touristik and Lidl Holidays will be discontinued on October 31st. The Lidl-Reisen website is to be continued, but exclusively with products from other tour operators. Around 120 employees are affected by the closure. JT Touristik had already terminated the agency agreements in April with effect from the end of October.

Cruises:

• Aida Cruises is extending the travel stop: According to TravelTalk, all trips up to and including July 31st may not take place as planned, the company informed. Guests who have booked a trip with Aida during this period will be informed. Bookings will be processed chronologically by departure date. The sister brand Costa Cruises is also extending its travel stop until July 31st. Guests who do not wish to use their credit balance, including a ten percent bonus, will be reimbursed by Aida upon request in the amount of the payment already made. To support travel agency sales, the shipping company intends to pay out a liquidity advance. This amounts to ten percent of the credit balance and will be transferred to the sales partner as soon as Aida has invested the travel credit for the joint customer.
• Aida wants money from the state – Arosa already has it: Aida is negotiating with the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for a bridging loan worth million, reports TravelTalk. Arosa, a river provider also based in Rostock, has already received the commitment from the state and the banks. According to information from NDR, the Rostock shipping company is now negotiating with the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for a bridging loan of up to 500 million euros. In addition, the German cruise market leader is to be taken under the rescue umbrella of the federal government. Aida is one of the largest employers in the state with a total of around 1500 employees on land.
• Nicko Cruises starts bookings for 2021: Nicko Cruises now offers trips on the Rhine and the Danube for the 2021 season. Soon customers will be able to go back on the river. In contrast to ocean cruises, river cruise operators can slowly get their ships back on the river. On June 1st, for example, Nicko Vision is scheduled to start with cruises between Passau and Düsseldorf. Nicko will also soon offer trips on the Rhein Symphonie between Cologne and Rüdesheim and on the Casanova between Saarbrücken and Stuttgart. The ships will be subject to a holistic hygiene concept and reduced capacity utilization. The so-called «Nicko worry-free package», which includes, among other things, reimbursement of costs in the event of cancellation due to Covid-19, is available free of charge for bookings made by June 30th.

Coronavirus update:

• Germans can travel to these countries again: Germany wants to lift its travel warning by June 15th for the 26 partner states of the EU as well as Great Britain, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Then – if there is no negative corona development – these states can be travelled to again without warning from the German point of view. An overview from fvw. Belgium: From the German side, the border to Belgium has already been open. Belgium still prohibits travel for tourist purposes at least until June 8th. Denmark: Denmark wants to keep the barriers down, at least until May 31st. France: On the borders with France, controls are to be abolished by June 16th. Greece: The country is gradually relaunching tourism and transport: since May 25th, travelers who are not quarantined will be able to travel from the mainland to all the islands of the Aegean and Ionian Seas. Great Britain: The British government plans to introduce a two-week quarantine for travelers entering the country, probably in June. Iceland: The Icelandic government will test every traveler entering the country for corona from June 15th. Italy: The country will reopen its borders on June 3rd. Croatia: Croatia wants to reopen its borders for Germans from June. Latvia: The Latvian government has extended the national emergency imposed on until June 9th. Luxembourg: Controls at the border with Luxembourg were ended during the night of May 16th. Netherlands: Relaxations are planned for July 1st for tourism. Then campsites and holiday parks will be allowed to open their doors again. Norway: Norway wants to open its borders to holidaymakers from Germany and other non-Scandinavian countries by July 20th at the earliest. Austria: The Austrian and German governments want to reopen the borders between the two countries on June 15th. Poland: The Polish government plans to reopen the borders on June 15th. Portugal: As soon as Germany drops the international travel warning, German tourists should be able to travel to Portugal again. Sweden: There is no closing of the borders, but controls and restrictions are planned. Switzerland: Germany and Switzerland want to reopen their borders on June 15th. Slovenia: Slovenia has declared the Corona pandemic over after a significant drop in infection rates and opens its borders to EU citizens from May 31st. Spain: From July, Spain plans to resume receiving foreign tourists. Czech Republic: The Czech government is considering reopening the country’s borders in July. Turkey: An official announcement on when Turkey will reopen its borders for tourists has not yet been made. However, Turkish Airlines has announced that it intends to gradually resume air traffic from June. Cyprus: Cypriot airports will remain closed to commercial passenger traffic until June 9th and there will be a ban on entry of foreign nationals, with a few exceptions.