One year of airline bailouts: what have we learned?

European airlines – some of the EU’s biggest polluters – have so far received an unprecedented €37 billion in government bailouts since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, nearly entirely without binding environmental conditions. This briefing outlines how state-aid guidelines should be reformed to require green and social conditionality as necessary preconditions to bailouts. It also argues that regulators need to be much more aggressive in putting forward measures which will reduce the climate impact of flying.