EasyJet's new CEO aims to follow McCall with boost in passengers

EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren laid out plans to serve 13% more passengers, widen links with other airlines and help pioneer testing of a hybrid-power plane in his first year of leading the discount carrier. Lundgren, who succeeded Carolyn McCall as CEO on Dec. 1, said EasyJet will carry about 90m travellers in 2018, helped by its purchase of Air Berlin’s operations at the German capital’s Tegel airport, the Luton, England-based airline said Wednesday. EasyJet’s transfer program with long-haul carriers will expand to cover about half of its routes during the year. “My ambition is to help EasyJet go from strength to strength next year,” Lundgren said. “Reaching these milestones will be a result of the successful delivery of our strategy of purposeful and disciplined growth.” The strategy builds on McCall’s efforts to turn EasyJet into a serious competitor to the likes of Ryanair and Europe’s biggest flag carriers. Lundgren, 51, joins EasyJet after a career in the tourism industry, primarily at German-British leisure operator TUI AG.<br/>