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Lufthansa aircraft

Photo: Olaf Schuelke / IMAGO

At first glance, it sounds as if hardly any stone is left unturned at Lufthansa: four board members are leaving and not all positions are being filled.

Major crisis at the fourth largest airline in the world, has the always optimistic CEO Carsten Spohr gambled away?

Upon closer inspection, the castling on the board had been apparent for some time.

The general weather situation for the group could hardly be better: Lufthansa expects record figures for the past financial year, and profits are bubbling up thanks to the still limited offering and the resulting high utilization and ticket revenue.

The booking figures for this year are also looking good so far - despite the poor economic situation in the country.

The departures from the Lufthansa board

And yet the group has problems, to which it is now responding with a restructuring of the board.

The departures of the two opinionated managers Harry Hohmeister, 59, Board Member for Global Markets and Network Management, and Detlef Kayser, 58, Board Member for Fleet and Technology, are expected - both simply reach Lufthansa's usual age limit of 60 for board members.

The Dutchman and CFO Remco Steenbergen, 56, is said to have a new job and is therefore leaving - a risk that is omnipresent among top personnel at Lufthansa because the pay there is considered below average compared to the size of the company.

That still leaves the end of the contract for Christina Foerster, 56, board member for brand management and sustainability.

At times she was even considered a potential candidate for the chairmanship of the board - although even then only as an emergency candidate.

This may also be due to the thankless layout of your department.

The area of ​​brand management in particular is considered vague; fellow board member Hohmeister occupied the operationally important task of commercial management of the premium airlines (including Lufthansa, Swiss) and the hubs.

She also stands out from her fellow board members: she designs some of her own clothing and actually wanted to become a watch designer.

The winner of the Lufthansa castling must pacify strikes

The winner of the restructuring of the board approved by the supervisory board on Thursday is the lawyer Michael Niggemann, 49, board member for human resources and infrastructure and the group's labor director.

Niggemann previously worked in the legal department of the Hochtief construction group, which built the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt am Main.

The manager likes to box in his free time; at Lufthansa he mainly has to settle collective bargaining disputes.

After several waves of strikes by ground staff and labor disputes at the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover Airlines with the support of some pilots from the Lufthansa core brand, new trouble is soon looming.

Niggemann, who is said to have a calm temperament even during heated negotiations, will have to be measured by how quickly he ensures peace without giving in too freely to the demands of the workforce.

The situation is tricky because the company is missing a lot of employees.

More than 1,000 new employees are expected to be hired every month this year;

By the end of 2024, one in three employees in the company will be new – a huge integration challenge.

New strikes are threatening – this time from Lufthansa flight attendants

A strike vote is currently underway at the UFO flight attendant union for a strike at Lufthansa itself - the union had previously declared collective bargaining negotiations with the company to have failed.

It is acknowledged that Lufthansa has “substantially improved” its offering, the union said in a statement to its members.

Specifically, there are problems with the term of a compensation contract and the start dates for wage increases.

According to the union, either the terms were too long or the percentage increases were too low.

The ballot starts online on February 26th and ends on March 6th at 12 p.m.

It remains to be seen whether there will actually be a strike – even if the members vote for it.

The distance to an amicable agreement is described as not “too far away”, in the negotiation environment.

Bad image among frequent flyers – solution from Switzerland?

Dieter Vranckx, 50, will be new to the board.

It was a surprise in Switzerland when he became CEO of the Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss in 2021.

What makes Vranckx, who has dual Belgian-Swiss citizenship, stand out for his new job at the parent company is, above all, his international experience.

Vranckx already managed the Belgian Lufthansa subsidiary Brussels Airlines, previously worked for Swiss and Lufthansa in Hong Kong, and worked for Lufthansa Cargo from Chicago to improve the freight subsidiary's market position.

Lufthansa wants to be the undisputed market leader in Europe.

The German market is becoming increasingly less important.

Only a third of Lufthansa passengers come from Germany.

While aviation in other countries has already recovered significantly after the corona crisis, Germany is lagging behind.

In some places, connections within Germany did not even reach 50 percent of the traffic that existed before the pandemic.

Bringing an internationally experienced board member on board makes strategic sense.

Lufthansa: More of a budget hotel than a grand hotel

While Lufthansa is now struggling with a bad image among passengers because the service on board is more like a budget hotel than a grand hotel, baggage handling continues to cause problems and the cabin facilities are outdated, Swiss still has a good reputation.

Frequent flyers with HON Circle member or senator status sometimes specifically book Swiss flights in order to get better service, including handwritten greeting cards at their seats.

Vranckx is to take over the “Global Markets and Commercial Control Hubs” department.

Apparently the hope is that some of the Swiss spirit could also spread to the core brand.

An orientation towards Swiss would also be good for the group financially.

While Lufthansa only managed an operating margin of 6.5 percent, Swiss had a return of 15.2 percent.

At the beginning of the year, Lufthansa brought in manager Tamur Goudarzi Pour, 53, from Swiss, where he was head of sales.

He is supposed to take care of the “customer experience” at Lufthansa and is located directly under the board of directors.

Better IT competence at Lufthansa

It is still a nuisance when flights have to be rebooked.

The company's smartphone app is prone to errors, sometimes redirects to the web browser, is not accessible or simply cannot implement certain functions.

All customers then have to do is call the call center, where they have to spend a lot of free time on hold.

Even there, not all things can be done without problems, for example because individual parts of the company work on different computer systems.

Grazia Vittadini, 54, will soon have these problems on her table.

She once dreamed of becoming a pilot in the Italian Air Force, but now she is supposed to take over the technology and IT department.

The aeronautical engineer Vittadini was previously head of technology and development at Airbus;

2022 Chief Technology Officer at engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce.

Rolls-Royce announced in October that Vittadini would be leaving the company in April 2024.

The group previously cut 2,500 jobs.

No successor in sight – Spohr remains number one

Hardly anything has changed for one person: Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, 57. For him, the company rule was even thrown out the window (unlike Hohmeister and Kayser) that board members should only work for Lufthansa until the age of 60.

His contract runs until 2028, including the celebrations in April 2026 - then it will be 100 years since the forerunner of Lufthansa had its first flight.

Spohr is already having the celebrations meticulously planned.

Unlike his successor.

Because the current board appointments do not indicate a clear candidate who could succeed Spohr.

Insiders believe that only labor director Michael Niggemann can take the position.

At least he is still just under 50 years old.

Now it depends on how he resolves the group's collective bargaining disputes.

Another milestone for the group will come next year.

Then, in all likelihood, the chairman of the supervisory board, Karl-Ludwig Kley, 72, will vacate his post.

Thomas Enders, 65, former head of Airbus, is considered a promising successor.