Lufthansa restructures passenger business organisation

Stronger customer focus through more efficient structures / Divisionalisation strategy to be continued / Launch of “Future Berlin” project / Changes to take effect on 1 April 2011

Lufthansa is restructuring its passenger business organisation to take account of the changing competitive landscape. The new, more customer-driven organisation will also allow the company to respond more effectively to market challenges. The aim is to sharpen the focus on customers and the competition while at the same simplifying and speeding up internal decision-making and management processes.
Ongoing development of the organisation will strengthen and sustain Lufthansa’s passenger business divisions, which will in future benefit from more efficient structures that are tailored to changed customer requirements, tougher competition and also to the new Group structure. The changes will take effect on 1 April.

The re-allocation of responsibilities and new appointments to the Lufthansa German Airlines Board announced on 7 December 2010 will also become effective on 1 April. Captain Kay Kratky will then be responsible for the Frankfurt and Flight Operations division, Thomas Klühr for Munich and Direct Services and Jens Bischof for Sales and Revenue Management. Dr. Roland Busch will remain in charge of the Finance and Human Resources division. Carsten Spohr took up his position as a member of the Lufthansa Executive Board and, simultaneously, CEO Lufthansa German Airlines on 1 January.

In the Finance and Human Resources division, the Controlling, Human Resources, Procurement, Airport Relations, Information management functions and a Finance project will have a direct reporting line to Dr. Roland Busch. Antonio Schulthess, who is joining Lufthansa from Swiss International Air Lines, will be responsible for Human Resources. Management of the other functions remains unchanged.

In the Sales and Revenue Management division, headed by Jens Bischof, greater emphasis will be placed on Lufthansa’s business and leisure travel sales activities. To that end, a new department responsible for the business travel segment will be set up and headed by Marcus Frank. Christian Tillmans, meanwhile, will be in charge of private customer sales and tourism in the leisure travel business segment. In future, Sales and Revenue Management will be merged under the management of Lars Redeligx. From April, a number of appointments will be taken up in area sales management. Uwe Müller will be responsible for Germany and the Lufthansa Airline Group markets (Switzerland and Austria), while European markets will remain the remit of Dr. Karsten Benz. Jürgen Siebenrock, who is joining Lufthansa from Lufthansa Cargo, will be responsible for managing markets in the Americas and Steffen Harbarth will be in charge of Asia/Pacific. Joachim Steinbach will remain responsible for Africa and the Middle East.

The reorganisation of the Frankfurt and Flight Operations division will create four functions with a direct reporting line to Captain Kay Kratky. Dr. Alexis von Hoensbroech will be responsible for Commercial Management. Andreas Döpper will remain in charge of Station and Infrastructure Development at Frankfurt. Wolfgang Kolhagen, who is moving from Condor Flugdienst GmbH to Lufthansa, will assume responsibility for cabin crew at Frankfurt. The Operations department at Frankfurt, which will in future incorporate flight operations as well as specific ground processes, will be headed by Captain Werner Knorr.

Following the creation of the new Munich and Direct Services division headed by Thomas Klühr, the strategy of divisionalisation will be carried forward and developed. The organisational structure of the operational units at Frankfurt will also be established in full at Munich under Helmut Wölfel as Commercial Manager. Captain Kai-Uwe Spannbauer will be in charge of Operations at MUC. In future, Munich cabin crews will be managed by Heike Birlenbach, while Burkhard Feuge will be responsible for Station and Infrastructure Development at Munich. Oliver Wagner will remain in charge of Direct Services, which will be responsible for all Lufthansa flights that are not routed through the Frankfurt or Munich hubs. Responsibility for Lufthansa’s activities in Italy will be bundled in a separate department and assigned to Michael Kraus, who will thus be responsible for Lufthansa Italia operations and Lufthansa’s sales organisation in Milan. In addition, he will remain Managing Director of Air Dolomiti.

As part of the restructuring process, new cross-functions will also be created. In future, aside from strategy development, the Business Development unit will oversee network and corporate development as well as fleet dimensioning and allocation. This function will be headed by Armin Herzwurm. Product and Marketing Management will be bundled in another cross-divisional function, which will be managed from April by Dr. Reinhold Huber. The new “Future Berlin” project will be launched to look into ways of expanding Lufthansa’s market position in Berlin. The manager responsible for this new function will be Josef Bogdanski. Managers in charge of the cross-functions will report direct to the CEO of Lufthansa German Airlines, Carsten Spohr.

Christian Tillmans’ move from the management of Lufthansa CityLine to Lufthansa will create a vacancy on the Board at Lufthansa’s regional subsidiary. Stephan Klar will therefore be proposed to the Lufthansa CityLine Supervisory Board as a new member of the airline’s Board of Directors.