Eurowings Adds 77 Aircraft from Airberlin Fleet

Eurowings is reaching the end of a project to integrate 77 aircraft from failed rival Airberlin into its fleet.

Over the past nine months the planes have joined with the airline, with an Airbus A320 from lessor Magnetar with 174 seats and the registration D-ABDT, marking the final hurdle.

All these machines were previously in service for Airberlin and were sold off or leased out by the respective owners following the airline’s bankruptcy in August last year.

Dirks also stresses that by doing this Eurowings has expanded its position in the European air traffic market.

In addition to the 77 aircraft, Eurowings has hired many new employees, reallocating 3,000 jobs in the cockpit, the cabin and on the ground.

Thanks to its extra capacity, Eurowings is now the number one at six German airports: Cologne, Düsseldorfand Stuttgart and now Hamburg, Nuremberg andHanover as well.

The airline is also recording strong growth at other important locations, in some cases up by more than 30 percent.

In total, more than 19 million passengers have taken off with Eurowings this summer, around 17 percent more customers than in the same period last year.

Dirks is convinced that the one-off investment in expanding Eurowings’s capacity this year will soon pay for itself.