Economy of Germany

Delivery Hero, in which German e-commerce investor Rocket Internet holds a 39 percent stake, has acquired Greece?s top takeaway delivery company, e-Food, Rocket said, without giving financial details.

[Reuters]

German airline Lufthansa said on May 5 it flew back into the black in the first three months of the year, powered particularly by the good performance of its Swiss and Lufthansa Cargo subsidiaries.

Lufthansa said in a statement it booked a net profit of 425 million euros ($473 million) in the period from January to March, compared with a loss of 252 million euros a year earlier.

Drivers working at Deutsche Bahn, the German train operator, have embarked on a new strike which is set to continue a week.

Employees are venting their anger at a refusal of Deutsche Bahn to accept the proposal for a 5% pay rise put forward by their trade union, GDL. Another key demand includes a reduction in working hours by cutting the working week from 39 to 37 hours.

The operation on recovering the debris of the Germanwings plane, which crashed in the French Alps in March, was completed on Monday.

The fragments of the Airbus A320 have been stored in a hangar near the site of the crash, Deutsche Welle reports.

Germany's E.ON has said it could float Turkish power producer Enerjisa, of which it owns 50 percent. A spokeswoman for E.ON said on April 16 there has been an agreement in principle with Turkey's Sabanc? Holding, the owner of the other half of Enerjisa, on a possible initial public offering (IPO) since 2012.

A memorial service for the victims of the crashed Germanwings plane will be held at Cologne Cathedral on Friday.

The service will gather relatives of the victims and the congregation is expected to number 1500 people, the BBC reports.

A Swiss-French banker alleged to be a key figure in the Siemens cash-for-contracts scandal and implicated in corrupt arms deals is to spend Easter in Greek custody after testifying before an investigating magistrate.

The 55-year-old, identified in the media as Jean-Claude Oswald, was extradited to Greece earlier last week following his arrest in Abu Dhabi.

The crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in France has heaped intense pressure on Lufthansa's CEO Carsten Spohr, who in less than a year at the helm has had to grapple with weak earnings, labor unrest and tough competition from lower-cost carriers.
                   

German national airliner Lufthansa announced Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had reported his "major depressive episode" back in 2009.

Lubitz is thought to have steered a Germanwings Airbus A-320 into the slopes of the French Alps last Tuesday causing the death of all 150 on board.

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