The Board of Airline Representatives in Germany (BARIG) is demanding a U-turn in the Berlin government’s aviation policy. Aviation development is stagnating and bureaucratic regulations and exorbitant fees have caused an increasing number of passenger and cargo airlines to migrate to airports in neighboring countries. According to BARIG, this alarming trend must be stopped for the benefit of passengers, cargo services and the entire national economy, all of which are dependent on a dense air traffic network.
In Germany, the recovery of air traffic from the Covid-19 crisis is almost the slowest in Europe. The number of passengers at airports rose by only 8.7% to just under 212 million in 2024. That is 15% less than pre-Covid, in 2019. This puts Germany in 28th place on the European continent, where the pre-crisis level rose by 104% in comparison. Cargo traffic is also booming elsewhere, for example in Liège, Budapest, and Vienna. In view of this situation, BARIG has now appealed to the federal government to take a political U-turn and support the industry to grow again.
Without cost reduction, no recovery
Michael Hoppe, BARIG Chairman and Executive Director, reasons: “The new federal government has taken up its work with the aim of leading Germany out of economic stagnation. Air traffic has a special role to play here, as it is regarded as an important economic engine. This has recently stuttered badly. The main reason for this is that location costs are far too high and continue to rise. As a result, Germany’s recovery as an aviation location is lagging far behind in a European comparison.”
This is in line with the demands of the German Aviation Association. Its Managing Director, Joachim Lang, points out another aspect: The unfulfillable power-to-liquid refueling quotas demanded by Brussels for reasons of climate protection. In the absence of an international level playing field, European airlines cannot meet the requirements of the Brussels policymakers. His counterproposal: The SAF surcharge should be included in the ticket price payable by a passenger for the entire journey – so from A to Z.
Level playing field urgently needed
Currently, the surcharge covers only the first part of a journey, say from Frankfurt to Istanbul, or Berlin to Doha. There, many passengers take a connecting flight which is exempt from any power-to-liquid surcharges. In contrast, Lufthansa, Condor, Swiss or Austrian Airlines fly nonstop from departure to destination, which increases the SAF price and therefore also the ticket costs.
Aviation remains committed to the goal of CO₂ reduction, assures Lang. “We fully support the climate targets, but we would like to be able to meet them.” Site costs, which have already doubled in the last five years in Germany, have risen to 4.5 billion euros per year due to “the cost explosions”, making them among the highest in Europe. As a result, foreign airlines are reducing their flights to and from Germany, and Lufthansa is increasingly concentrating on growth in Brussels, Vienna and, more recently, Rome, the Group’s European hubs, hence, outside its German core market.
