Relief for Lufthansa after top shareholder backs rescue deal

Lufthansa’s top shareholder on Wednesday said he would back a nine billion euro government rescue package, removing the threat of a last-minute veto that could have plunged the German airline into bankruptcy.

“I will vote for the agreement,” German billionaire Heinz Hermann Thiele told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper on the eve of an extraordinary general meeting at which investors will decide on the fate of the coronavirus-hit giant.

Chief executive Carsten Spohr has warned that “the future of the company” is at stake after the pandemic throttled Lufthansa’s usual flood of passengers to a trickle for several months this year.

Spohr will address the online meeting set to begin at 1000 GMT, urging investors to back the plan he hammered out over weeks of talks with ministers and the European Commission.