Insolvency
Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn GmbH files for bankruptcy
Appearances are deceptive: the lights will soon go out at Hahn Airport. Photo: Thomas Frey / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Whirlwind about the shareholder HNA, legal disputes over aid and a shrinking passenger business – there were always headlines about the Hunsrück airport Hahn. Now he is bankrupt.
Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn GmbH in Hunsrück has filed for bankruptcy. Hahn operations manager Christoph Goetzmann told the dpa that the bankruptcy petition had been submitted to the Bad Kreuznach district court.
The court appointed the Frankfurt lawyer Jan Markus Plathner as the preliminary insolvency administrator. The «Wirtschaftswoche» had previously reported on it.
Aiport in Chinese hands
Hahn Airport is 82.5 percent owned by the major Chinese group HNA. The company acquired the shares in 2017 for around 15 million euros from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The remaining 17.5 percent are still with the State of Hesse. Most recently, the arrest of the top management of the financially troubled HNA group caused a stir. The Hunsrück airport emphasized at the time that this would have no effect on the Hahn. The airport was on the right course, it was said at the beginning of October.
Growth in the freight business
Hahn Airport recently posted growth in its freight business, with the former US military airport benefiting from the boom in online trading and container bottlenecks in the sea business, among other things. In the passenger business, on the other hand, Hahn had to accept declines again and again, even before the Corona travel restrictions in 2020. The regional airport once counted up to four million passengers a year, which it is now a long way off. The top dog in the passenger business at Hahn, the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, reduced its offer in the Hunsrück and relocated flights to neighboring, larger airports.
Goetzmann emphasized at the beginning of October that he had steered Hahn through the corona pandemic without aid and without short-time work. According to their report published in the Federal Gazette, the airport management nonetheless expected a shortfall in 2020. Depending on the course of the pandemic, plans are being made “that a positive consolidated annual result can be achieved by 2024,” it said. After that, airports are generally no longer allowed to receive state subsidies in accordance with EU law.
A legal dispute over taxpayers’ money in the millions for Frankfurt-Hahn Airport was decided this summer. At the time, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected a complaint by Lufthansa. The ECJ confirmed a previous judgment. The dispute concerned state aid since 1997 for the Hunsrück airport and contracts with Ryanair on airport charges.