Lufthansa said Monday it planned to hire about 8,000 people in 2018, with more than half of the new employees being flight attendants. Some 2,500 of the new hires would go to Lufthansa proper, while 2,700 would be taking up jobs at Eurowings, the airline said. Taking into account workers leaving the company, a Lufthansa spokesman said that the net effect of the hiring effort would be "several thousand" new jobs — an increase on the roughly 3,000 who started work last year. Eurowings is key to the group's expansion plan, as CE Carsten Spohr aims to challenge budget airline competitors like Ryanair and EasyJet. EasyJet last week launched Germany flights for the first time, after it purchased 25 Air Berlin planes stationed at Berlin's Tegel Airport, along with the take-off and landing rights in mid-December. <br/>
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Lufthansa has trialled a series of innovations aboard an Airbus A380 FlyingLab flight from Frankfurt to Houston following a futuristic travel experience competition—aimed at young developers—which was jointly run by Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom. “The challenge helps us expand our pool of ideas and gain valuable outside impetus: We can find out what our passengers really want on board. It brings us even closer to the flight experience of tomorrow,” Lufthansa head of Frankfurt cabin crew Kai Duve said. One team designed a chatbot, which receives passenger requests via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The same team also designed a cape-like blanket (inset photo), with an integrated neck pillow that can be set to a gently vibrate to wake passengers up. <br/>
Aegean Airlines announced Monday it flew 6% more passengers last year; mostly on international flights, hitting a record 13.2m passengers. Aegean, improved its load factor to 83.2% last year from 77.4% in 2016, riding on a strong tourism year. The carrier is adding 11 new routes this year, including Basel in Switzerland, Malaga in Spain, and Palermo, Turin and Bologna in Italy. Aegean plans to renew its fleet of mostly Airbus narrow body jets, and is currently evaluating the new generation Airbus A320neo family and Boeing’s 737MAX. Meanwhile, Aegean has been ranked among the Top-20 airlines with the most accurate arrival time, in the world. The carrier is No.18 of the international On Time Performance (OTP) list, compiled by British air travel intelligence company OAG. <br/>
As United Airlines prepare to rebank its flight schedule at Chicago O'Hare International next month, the carrier is moving to aggressively expand its 2018 summer flight schedule. United said Monday it will add 7 new year-round destinations from 5 of its hubs, including O'Hare. The new destination from Chicago is Bismarck, North Dakota, with 2 regional flights daily starting June 7. From United's Denver hub, the carrier will fly daily to Appleton, Wisconsin; and Norfolk, Virginia beginning June 7. United Houston's hub will get new daily service to Akron/Canton, Ohio and Dayton, Ohio, as of June 7. And from Los Angeles International , United will add Eureka, California daily starting June 7. And Madison, Wisconsin will get daily nonstop regional service to San Francisco also starting June 7. <br/>