Lufthansa, Belgium agree on Brussels Airlines recovery plan

BRUSSELS – The Belgian government and Lufthansa have agreed on a rescue plan for struggling airline Brussels Airlines.

The deal reached this week is made up of 290 million euros ($337 million) in loans from the government and a capital injection of 170 million euros ($198 million) by Lufthansa, the airline’s parent company.

Hard-hit by the coronavirus crisis, Brussels Airlines announced in May it was planning to cut a quarter of its workforce as part of a cost-cutting plan. The company said in a statement Friday that the rescue package will secure “tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs.”

The plan, which needs to be approved by the European Commission and Germany’s economic stabilisation fund, also covers some of the losses triggered by the pandemic. Brussels Airlines said it lost 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a day because of revenue losses, aircraft leasing and maintenance costs when its planes were grounded under the lockdown measures implemented to slow down the spread of the virus.