Chancellor Merkel welcomes new Lufthansa traffic control centre

German chancellor Angela Merkel has visited the Lufthansa Group in Frankfurt.

The visit to the facility was occasioned by the opening of the new traffic Integrated Operations Control Centre, an exchange with apprentices, as well as the naming ceremony of an Airbus A380.

Chancellor Merkel began her visit by officially opening Lufthansa’s new traffic control centre in Frankfurt.

The IOCC unites traffic control with the coordination of ground operations at Lufthansa’s home hub in Frankfurt.

Carsten Spohr, chairman of the executive board at Lufthansa Group, presented the new traffic control centre to the chancellor; in the IOCC a total of 160 employees per shift supervise and control flights, passenger flow and ground events day and night.

Chancellor Merkel then met apprentices training in various occupations at a Lufthansa Technik training aircraft in a hangar.

With approximately 37,000 employees, the Lufthansa Group is the largest employer in Hesse; year for year young people receive training in more than 30 occupations.

In this summer alone 250 apprentices started apprenticeships with various Lufthansa Group companies, 150 of those in Frankfurt.

This year Lufthansa will also hire 1,400 flight attendants, who have either already finished their training in 2015, or who are currently still in training.

The highlight of the visit was the naming of an Airbus A380.

During a festive ceremony the chancellor named the A380 – which is the 14th chancellor such aircraft in Lufthansa’s fleet and is registered under D-AIMN – “Deutschland”.

The chancellor poured champagne on the hull of the aircraft and spoke a few ceremonial words to mark the occasion.