According to several media reports published on 22 and 23 April, the Franco-Dutch airline Air France-KLM will be receiving a bail-out to the tune of approximately €12 billion in aid.
The reports state that France will be paying roughly €10 billion, while the Netherlands will be writing a less generous cheque, for €2 billion to €3 billion euros.
The airline's management confirmed to the French Senate on Wednesday 22 April that Air France would “need cash in the third quarter of 2020”.
Air France-KLM’s management stated that the financial assistance will take the form of bank loans 90% guaranteed by both governments and direct loans from the governments, both of which will have to be repaid.
No bonuses. On Thursday 23 April, Wopke Hoekstra, the Dutch finance minister, said that Air France-KLM must not pay its managing director, Ben Smith, a bonus this year if the group wants to receive support from the Dutch government.
“In times of crisis like this, bonuses are ill-advised and incompatible with taxpayer-funded aid”, he told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. Smith receives a fixed annual salary of €900,000, while the variable part of his pay can be as much as €1.35 million. He also receives a bonus of two million euros per year that will be paid to him after three years.
Environmental compensation. MEPs Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, France) and Sophie in't Veld (Renew Europe, Netherlands), Dutch MP Jan Paternotte and French MP Bérangère Abba called for aid of this nature to be accompanied by compensatory measures and commitments to carbon neutrality.
In an opinion piece published on Wednesday 22 April in the French newspaper Libération and the Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad, the four politicians stressed that “the aviation industry is not like any other sector, as its existence has a significant impact on the climate”.
Like a large number of civil society organisations (see EUROPE 12469/18), they are calling for an “environmental transition contract” to be implemented between taxpayers and the aviation industry.
“The question is not whether we save our airlines - sovereignty, social and employment issues compel us to do so - but how we go about doing it”, they say, pointing out that these companies cannot take public money and at the same time “refuse to pay taxes”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur and Agathe Cherki)