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Comment by hanniabu | Hacker News Reader

No, we can't let them fail, that'd be capitalism!

Many major national carriers have national importance. So, no, they won't go bankrupt. Be it Lufthansa, Air France, Air China, or whatever.

Airlines like Ryanair and Wizz air might be different.

The difference is there isn't a predominant American legacy airline. AA is only marginally larger than Delta or United. Personally, having never lived in their hub or focus cities I have rarely ever flown them, and it's conceivable that the national value of LH or AF to their countries is greater than AA.

Several European countries allowed their former national airlines to go bankrupt or be sold to foreign owners.

Swissair, Sabene (Belgium) and Olympic (Greece) went bankrupt, I'm sure there are more.

Air France and KLM (Netherlands) merged a while ago, as did British Airways and Iberia (Spain).

Ryanair is Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers.

Curious what you mean by “national importance?” Do you mean ego/national pride, or that without a state provided carrier there would be no flights (unlikely for a Germany or Belgium, but possible for, say, the Marshall Islands or Togo)? Or that there is some sort of treaty-mandated interlink that requires a designated flag carrier (I know this last case was true decades ago, but I’m not sure the US even has one any more)?

Well, a country with a decent population size and a decent economy has to rely on air transport. Just now many countries flew out their citizens for example.

As far as I know, Lufthansa, like some other airlines, have a government owned golden share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_share

In fact, if I remember right, an EU based airline is not even allowed to be owned by more than 50% of non EU share holders.

FWIW Australia is coordinating flights via foreign airlines in addition to QANTAS. In fact United is running more flights to AUS than QANTAS.

LH’s golden share was sold off in the 1990s (that’s in the article).

It's about control. During bad time like this Covid time, to haul cargo of national importance like masks or ventilators, passenger airline can be used if military one proves insufficient.

And how many countries will allow others military cargo planes in their border?

> And how many countries will allow others military cargo planes in their border?

In practice: most, including the US. How do you think that Russian aid was delivered last month? Not on a commercial flight.

Never mind that several smaller airlines of national importance went bankrupt in recent years because of EU regulation against state aid. Now that the big ones need it, the regulation is out the window.

Or it's because of special circumstances and we can stop pretending it's not.

Sure, nobody pretends it is not a special situation. It is still deeply unfair that when you need a bailout I don't allow it, when I need it, it is a special situation so it is OK.

The fact that the shutdowns are government-enforced is where the "it's capitalism" argument breaks down. The market's no longer free due to the government, so it makes sense that they would then try to offset the corresponding economic damage.

There will always be excuses. At the end of the day it's always capitalized profits, socialized losses.

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