The Brno-based online airline tickets seller Kiwi.com has secured a state-guaranteed €45 million loan from Komercni banka and Citibank. The state backed the loan as part of its program to help support companies that have been hit hard by disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This has been particularly severe for companies in the tourism and transportation sector and the Kiwi.com loan is the largest yet to receive such a guarantee. The company’s business is based on an algorithm that enables it to search for and connect flights from more than 800 airlines. It purchases the tickets and then sells them at a margin to its customers. Before the pandemic, Kiwi was handling 35,000 daily, but the grounding of the world’s airlines has reduced its earnings to nearly zero. “We’re entirely self-reliant and we’re able to finance ourselves from our own resources,” said co-founder Oliver Dlouhy. “Because of this unprecedented situation caused by Covid-19, however, we decided to take the loan in order to strengthen our financial position.” He said Kiwi would not use the funds for the purpose of compensating customers but rather to strengthen communications with airlines in order to encourage compensation.
