Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Over here airlines and aviation are considered key economic infrastructure.
Maybe the euros think of them more like the coal industry?
No, the airports are privatized in Europe (they might have a 50 year lease or something). We run them publicly here. Considering the respective politics you'd think that situation would be reversed.
"Letting airports go bankrupt" in Europe just means letting the private companies that manage the airports put themselves through the financial reorganization process rather than bail a private company out with public funds.
Here is an article advocating for the same thing here (in a liberal publication no less!)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/sell-airports/615331/