This happened during the ramp up phase of a new long haul operation for Lufthansa under the Eurowings brand. The aircraft was previously flown by Eva air in Taiwan and the pilots come from Sun Express Germany a joint venture between LH and Turkish airlines.
The aircraft has been shuttling twice a day to Palma getting crews trained and testing the operation. It is probable that maintenance and trainers were being provided by Lufthansa. Exactly how enthusiastic everyone is about this new low cost experiment is unclear. What is obvious is that this is a not very encouraging start to the operation and will raise uncomfortable questions about interactions between various parts of the LH group.
In particular questions are bound to be asked how a large piece of the engine cowl could have come off with potentially serious consequences and the aircraft climb to 41,000 feet and fly nearly two hours to Palma where the weather was not particularly good with a blustery north east wind and thunderstorms in the forecast. It may well all be a chain of unfortunate coincidences and indeed the sort of thing it is better to find out during the shakedown rather than in full out operation. But I am sure the authorities will be looking closely at this.