Miguel Praga

🛫 On the eve of Three Kings' Day, Ryanair flight FR2501, a 737Max with registration 9H-VUR from Malta, was scheduled to fly from Gran Canaria to Berlin, departing at 16:50 and expected to arrive ten minutes before 23:00. Delayed by prior flights, it took off at 18:40. Berlin's airport, with strict operating hours from midnight to 05:00, closed as the plane, already at an altitude of 1,225 feet, was preparing to land, forcing it to divert 162 miles to Hannover, where it landed at 00:36. Ryanair provided buses for passengers to Berlin, a three-hour journey. The next morning at 09:37, the plane flew empty to Berlin. Ryanair chose to avoid additional costs of accommodating passengers and crew in Gran Canaria, limiting their expenses to the buses and €400 in delay compensations.

✈ Lufthansa Group, comprising several airlines in Central Europe, will hire 10,000 new employees in 2023. Roles include 2,000 flight attendants, 1,400 ground handling staff, 1,300 technicians, 800 pilots, and 1,200 administrative workers. Over half of the positions are in Germany, with others at Eurowings and Austrian Airlines. Despite the mass hiring, Lufthansa continues its Efficiency Program, which involves fewer layoffs than in 2024. The company hired 30,000 employees over the past three years and currently employs 100,000 staff across 90 countries. The hiring move is notable in Germany, a country facing daily job cuts.

💸 Lufthansa will finalize the purchase of a 41% stake in ITA Airways on January 13, costing 325 million euros. The acquisition follows over a year of negotiations, with a critical approval from the European Union's Directorate-General for Competition on November 30, regarding the slot transfer proposal. This completion marks the end of a process initiated on November 30, 2023, after an agreement was notified to the European Commission. Selected partners for the operation are IAG and Air France-KLM for long-haul, and EasyJet for short and medium-haul.