Germanwings Expands Berlin Operations

German budget airline Germanwings plans to expand its operations in Berlin. The carrier, which is partly owned by Lufthansa, will offer flights to 10 foreign and domestic destinations from the German capital's Schönefeld airport this year. New destinations include Stockholm, Moscow, Zagreb, Split, Istanbul and Ankara. Germanwings CEO Joachim Klein said on Wednesday the airline wanted to double the number of cities it flies to by 2007. The expansion will create 120 new jobs, he added. Germanwings, which is based in Cologne, hopes to boost passenger numbers in Berlin in 2005 to over one million. Following the arrival of EasyJet at Schönefeld in recent years, Berlin has quickly become a hub for budget airline offerings, threatening Lufthansa's market share.