Desperate Lilium Aerospace employees who have gone almost two months without pay have been forced to turn to crowdfunding in order to cover their living costs while the firm remains in financial limbo.
Staff last received salaries in December – albeit under the aegis of their former employer – while the 31 January deadline for that month’s wages passed without payment.
Now cash-strapped employees have set up a GoFundMe page to “pay bills and afford to eat”.
Money pledged will be distributed equally to those staff who sign up “to buy them food in the next week or two of uncertainty”.
Around 1,000 employees – including more than 200 who were made redundant by Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH in mid-December – are affected, page founder Sibel Kurtcebe writes. Kurtcebe was previously a data manager at Lilium, her LinkedIn profile shows.
“Many of these people relocated their families from far abroad for this job and don’t have a chance to work in any other industry at this stage.
“Additionally being employed or within their notice period does not enable them to seek unemployment money from the government,” Kurtcebe writes.
Meanwhile, Lilium Aerospace continues its race against time to secure the funding needed to keep the lights on.
Although the company had warned it would be forced to file for insolvency on 14 February, that deadline was pushed into the following week.
While no announcement has been made – and salaries remain unpaid – the internal messaging from Lilium Aerospace’s management continues to be positive.
In a message to all employees, seen by FlightGlobal, the firm says interim chief executive Severin Tatarczyk has “been able to decide against filing for insolvency at this stage because there are advanced options that offer a concrete and viable path to securing payroll.
“Please rest assured that we are fighting hard to ensure that salaries from January onwards are paid.”
Thanking staff, it adds: “We truly appreciate your resilience throughout this ongoing period of uncertainty.
“We understand the challenges this situation has placed on you and your families, especially financially.”
And in another message, a senior manager tells selected staff that the delay in the insolvency filing is potentially “good news”.
“Because that means there is still a reasonable chance we make it. And that means a chance where we make it with enough money to be able to pay salaries for Jan and Feb now and restart ops. And don’t get into trouble in March again.”
Lilium Aerospace declined to comment. The Munich-based company was set up in December to acquire the business and assets of Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH that were on the brink of closure.
However, the company has so far not managed to secure the funding from its investors to allow salaries to be paid and operations to resume.
