Germany has pledged a €380 million ($418 million) six-month bridging loan to Condor Flugdienst, the German airline subsidiary of Thomas Cook Group, after deciding the airline’s difficulties were not of its own doing and its balance sheet proved sound. Thomas Cook Group filed for bankruptcy on Monday morning. German economy minister Peter Altmaier described the loan as “massive”—it totals more than twice the €150 million bridging loan the government granted to struggling Air Berlin, which ranked as the country’s second largest airline when it filed for insolvency in August 2017—and stressed that political criteria did not drive the decision but rested on “thorough and careful ” economic analysis of the company by several ministerial departments. “Condor is a profitable company. Its difficulties are due to the sudden collapses of its parent company,” he said, adding that the financial facility offers the prospect of saving many the carrier's nearly 5,000 jobs and will allow for the return in “acceptable conditions” of the 240,000 Condor passengers now abroad.
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