Comment by lowdose
5 years ago
> Lufthansa was on the verge of bankruptcy and agreed to a €9 billion bailout from the German government. In an effort to save the company, the German government told Lufthansa that they don’t need to obey EU consumer protection law, and that they don’t need to issue refunds.
It's so sad to see capitalism getting killed by bureaucrats out of self interest.
Well, Level Europe just gone bankrupt a month ago, and while I can register my claim (in another country only, and only in German, lol), non-refundable registration fee is > than the cost of the ticket, and that would be just a beginning.
Never mind I was never told I was buying from level europe, all the communications prior to bankrupcy mentioned just level or vueling. (bot are different companies)
Really, the whole thing is set up so that only rich get any chance for getting any money back out of bankrupt companies, at the expense of small customers of course.
And of course as soon as they go bankrupt they delete everyhting online, so you have absolutely nothing to reference other than your payment records and whatever meager info they put in their notification e-mails. (all the terms and conditions, and everything else is gone, no access to booking info, etc.)
This person can be glad he can have a voucher.
Not sure what you mean.
Without government help there wouldn't be any airlines left. Would you prefer that?
> Without government help there wouldn't be any airlines left.
Could you elaborate on that please?
Edit: It's just another round of socializing risk while privatizing profit. Too big to fail is a hoax. When a firm is declared bankrupt only 1% the of value is lost to bankruptcy costs.
The other 99% is recovered by creditors through asset sales, restructuring, layoffs of people that use their knowledge in other companies.
The ratio of direct bankruptcy costs to the market value of the firm appears to fall as the value of the firm increases.
As measured here, the cost of bankruptcy is on average about one percent of the market value of the firm prior to bankruptcy.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2326766?seq=1
I don't think this comment is entirely right, but do I stand behind the government bailouts, both for KLM, Lufthansa and Airfrance and other airlines. Why? It's simple, people can complain about Lufhansa being bailed out but not getting their money back. If the German government didn't bailout Lufthansa there would be no money to give back nor would there be any option to get a voucher because there would be no company left.
Sure, why not? The airplanes, airports, pilots, flight attendants, and ground crews will still exist.