German airline group Lufthansa said Monday it plans to hire more than 8,000 people in 2018, the latest step in a relentless push for growth at one of Europe’s largest carriers. Taking into account workers leaving the company, a Lufthansa spokesman told AFP that the net effect of the hiring spree would be “several thousand” new jobs — an increase on the roughly 3,000 who started work last year. As well as its own blue-and-yellow liveried fleet, Lufthansa owns a slew of smaller airlines, including no-frills Eurowings, Swiss Air, Austrian and Brussels Airlines. Some 2,500 of the new hires will go to Lufthansa proper, while 2,700 take up jobs at Eurowings. But it had to offer concessions to allay the top EU competition authority’s concerns, giving up plans to buy Air Berlin’s Austrian subsidiary Niki.

Source: Punch January 08, 2018 13:07 UTC