Late chains threatened: Trump’s customs thunderstorms could hit the aviation violently

Passengers are already eliminated in the United States, and airlines worldwide are concerned about future business. The customs policy of the US President Donald Trump has long been affecting international air traffic. But it could get much worse if the customs walls were pulled up between the USA and Europe.

The industry is still puzzling over the future conditions, while the EU and the USA negotiate. Currently, only the new US base custom of 10 percent and 25 percent special tariffs are in force on cars, auto parts as well as steel and aluminum. Civil aircraft and aircraft parts have so far been excluded from tariffs between the EU and the United States according to a 1980 WTO agreement. “This agreement should continue to apply,” says a spokesman for the industry association BDL.

But at first people simply do without air travel, warns the industry expert Maria Latorre from the credit insurer Euler Hermes. Because of the increasing concerns about the US economy and inflationary consequences, it predicts a significant slowdown with input and outgoing tourism in the USA, both in exchange with China and with Europe with correspondingly falling booking figures.

With reference to the upcoming quarterly report, the Lufthansa Group currently does not call any details about the main market of North Atlantic. When presenting the annual financial statements in March, CEO Carsten Spohr still reported stable booking figures and high ticket prices, which one was achieved in particular for US customers. Competitor Condor reports that the booking inputs were “within the framework of their own market expectations”. There were no massive changes.

A look at the US internal market shows that the calm could quickly be over in times of Trump’s customs storms. Authorities, business people and private passengers book fewer domestic flights and keep their money together. As a result, the large US companies have corrected their expectations down, sometimes no longer trust the business figures. And Virgin Atlantic Airways reported booking declines in their long -distance flights between the USA and Great Britain.

However, the greater concern applies to the supply chains for the construction of modern passenger aircraft. According to a line -up of Euler Hermes, Airbus has more than 2,000 suppliers, Boeing at least 345, the majority of whom are also located on possibly liable abroad. “Europe and America are closely interwoven in aviation. Our companies are urgently dependent on deliveries. Sometimes there are even several border crossings in the production process,” says the general manager of the Federal Association of German Aerospace Industry (BDLI), Marie-Christine von Hahn.

Even without additional customs barriers, passenger jets after the Corona crisis are a scarce commodity that has led to thin air plans and correspondingly high ticket prices. Due to massive manufacturing and approval problems, Boeing in particular is in default with its deliveries, so that numerous airlines are desperately waiting for new aircraft. At the European competitor Airbus, the order books with ten times the annual production are overcrowded.

According to the financial news agency Bloomberg, China is said to have instructed its airlines not to take over machines from the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing and no equipment or equipment for the aviation of US companies. The hour of its own medium -range jet Comac C919 could beat in China, even if many parts come from the west. “These transatlantic tariffs only use our competitors. The West thus brakes its own competitiveness,” says von Hahn.

At Lufthansa, 242 fixed aircraft orders were on the note at the turn of the year, 101 jets are to come from Boeing. Among them are 15 fully assembled dreamliners from the long-distance type 787, which are still in Seattle on the farm due to the lack of approvals at the Lufthansa seats. According to information from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, it is already being checked internally to fly the jets from drastic verses at short notice via the Atlantic or to import them through Switzerland.

Airlines do not want to pay tariffs on aircraft

Boeing wholesaler Ryanair is based on the fact that Trump will not attach a customs ballast to his flagship export company Boeing. From next year until 2034, the IREN expect the delivery of 330 Boeing 737-Jets-“at the agreed price”, as the company records on the DPA request. A change to European Airbus aircraft is an option for no airline due to the full order books of the aircraft manufacturers. The US airline Delta has already made it clear that it will never take over import duties for ordered Airbus machines.

However, there could also be a short-term winner throughout the customs malaise: In an interview with the “Spiegel”, the new Easyjet boss Kenton Jarvis hopes for additional passengers in Europe if US trips are abandoned. “We are very happy that we have an airplane from Europe with Airbus and that our engines do not come from the American company Pratt & Whitney. We weren’t smarter than others, we were just lucky.”