Depends how you look at it.

Students pre-operation casualty estimates for Merkur suggested around 1 in 3 Fallschirmjager would become casualties... a rather profound and accurate estimation. He realised the operation would be heavy in losses but he was of the opinion that airborne operations would always be due to the nature of the beast, as had been the case in Norway and Holland.

The real problem for the Germans, and the reason that strategic airborne operations were curtailed was the losses in transport aircraft and crews. Crete bled the transport fleets white and when added to the losses in Holland and Norway, it was losses they could not replace or afford. It is also interesting to note the knock-on effect that losses in airborne operations had on Luftwaffe bomber crew training as many of the transport crews were made up from those assigned to training bomber crews as it was felt that a high degree of accuracy was required when dropping paratroopers.

After Crete Germany only carried out smaller tactical airborne operations but they did not stop the planning and indeed preparation for large strategic operations. Till the end of the war, large amounts of parachutes were kept ready for airborne operations and development of gliders continued as the Germans saw them as a better means of delivery than the parachute. Later German operations laid some of the groundwork for post-war special forces doctrine showing the possibilities of a vertically deployed force in undertaking tactical operations.

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"The Americans will always do the right thing ... After they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Winston Churchill