Airlines Lufthansa board approves plans to grow Eurowings

The Airbus A320 Family aircraft could come from Air Berlin and its Austrian subsidiary Niki. The Dash 8 Q400 could come from the German airline Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter which operates the aircraft currently for Air Berlin.

The acquisition of the aircraft is partly dependent on the successful conclusion of negotiations to acquire parts of the Air Berlin. The investments would be financed from existing liquid funds.

Over the past few months, Lufthansa had already taken on 20 aircraft operated by Eurowings under the existing wet lease agreement with Air Berlin; 15 by acquisition and five more leased with a purchasing option. Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG: "We now have the great opportunity to take a decisive step forward with Eurowings in Europe. (...) For Eurowings, it will be a major challenge to cope with the rapid growth."

Subject to approval by the relevant antitrust authorities, the Eurowings Group can grow by a total of up to 81 aircraft in the future. The Eurowings Group is expected to require up to 3,000 additional jobs in the cockpit and cabin operations, due to the hiring and intended acquisition of companies of Air Berlin. Yesterday, Air Berlin announced ongoing negotiations with Lufthansa and Easyjet.