Germany's flagship airline Lufthansa aims to boost its workforce by 4,000 this year as it prepares for a surge in passengers, the group's new chief executive told German newspaper Bild. That would be an increase of around 3 percent, based on the latest available company figures.
"The expansion of seating capacities, thanks to bigger short-haul aircraft and the A380 on intercontinental flights, means that there's demand for more staff in the cockpit and the cabin," Christoph Franz, who succeeded Wolfgang Mayrhuber as CEO on January 1, told the Monday edition of the paper.
"Lufthansa is in a period of growth," Franz added.
In November, Lufthansa said that it aims to hike capacity at its cargo unit to meet rising demand, particularly growth into and out of Asia.