Economy of Germany

TUI Group, the world's largest leisure tourism group, said it was on track to grow underlying profits by between 10 and 15 percent this year as it announced plans to sell British hotel booking website LateRooms. 

The German economy, Europe's biggest, grew by 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2015, slightly slower than expected, data published by the federal statistics office Destatis showed on May 13.

German rail passengers seethed on Tuesday at the beginning of a … seven-day strike by train engineers for more pay and shorter hours.

The longest stoppage in the bitter dispute is set to continue until Sunday morning.

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.