Lufthansa Introduces ‘Return Flight Guarantee’
Back in March, when the coronavirus pandemic first started causing havoc on travel worldwide, many German nationals were stranded abroad. The German government spent over $60 million in a deal with commercial airlines, to bring back around 240,000 people.
Now German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has announced that Germany would not carry out repatriation flights this summer, as it did at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, DW reports. So Lufthansa is introducing a “homecoming guarantee” for any German resident it flies abroad, its CEO said in an interview Sunday.
“We are aware of this, which is why we are introducing a homecoming guarantee. Whoever wants to return to Germany, we will bring back,” Lufthansa Chief Executive Carsten Spohr told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Pandemic Worsens Worldwide
Air travel is starting to pick up, but it is still far from normal. One of the reasons is the fear of being stranded due to coronavirus travel restrictions. While in many countries, the worst part of the pandemic is over and borders are reopening, worldwide the pandemic is getting worse.
More than 136,000 cases of the novel coronavirus were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday. That’s the most reported in a single day so far during the pandemic. Nearly 75 per cent of Sunday’s cases originated from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia.
