EasyJet's new CEO aims to follow McCall with 13% boost in passengers

London

EASYJET chief executive officer Johan Lundgren laid out plans to serve 13 per cent more passengers, widen links with other airlines and help pioneer testing of a hybrid-power plane in his first year of leading the discount carrier.

Mr Lundgren, who succeeded Carolyn McCall as CEO on Dec 1, said EasyJet will carry about 90 million travellers in 2018, helped by its purchase of Air Berlin's operations at the German capital's Tegel airport, the Luton, England-based airline said on Wednesday in a statement. EasyJet's transfer programme with long-haul carriers will expand to cover about half of its routes during the year.