Lufthansa won formal approval from the European Commission yesterday to take over parts of collapsed Air Berlin.
The German airline giant said it had made “extensive concessions” to secure the green light from Brussels for the deal to acquire Air Berlin arm LGW.
The acquisition will see 33 aircraft added to Lufthansa’s low cost Eurowings subsidiary – 20 Bombardier Dash 8 Q400s and 13 Airbus A320s.
All LGW staff will transfer to Eurowings with their current contracts of employment.
With additional recruitment, the number of personnel in LGW’s flight operations should rise to up to 870 in 2018, according to Lufthansa.
The agreement followed easyJet winning approval to take over part of Air Berlin’s operations at Berlin Tegel airport.
Eurowings CEO Thorsten Dirks said: “This regulatory approval of our acquisition of LGW is an encouraging development and I am especially pleased that we can offer our new employees promising prospects within Europe’s fastest-growing airline.”
Eurowings has already hired more than 500 staff over the past few weeks, including a large number of pilots and cabin crew.
The carrier has secured collective expansion agreements with all unions, ensuring that all flight operations will be able to grow in the near term, according to Eurowings.
Dirks added: “We have the support of our social partners, we are an attractive employer, we have and will be getting more first-rate employees – with these conditions, Eurowings will continue to be a growth engine in 2018.”