Airline: Lufthansa is radically restructuring its board of directors

There has never been so much restructuring in the Lufthansa Group: four out of six board members are set to leave in the coming months, the board will be reduced by one position, and a new chief financial officer is still being sought.

This sounds like a mega-crisis for Europe’s highest-grossing airline group, but it can ultimately be explained by economic circumstances and personal decisions. After overcoming the Corona crisis, the Kranich Group’s business has been better than it has been for a long time. High ticket prices and fully booked aircraft meant that Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr was able to once again present one of the highest profits in the company’s history on March 7th.

The supervisory board, led by former Lufthansa CFO Karl-Ludwig Kley, took a clear cut when restructuring the board instead of saying goodbye to the four outgoing managers every month. What came as a particular surprise was the departure of Remco Steenbergen, the chief financial officer who was hired from Switzerland just three years ago and is technically undisputed, and who is reportedly moving on to another, higher-paying job.

Christina Foerster, the only woman on the board, is also leaving

However, the terms of office of Lufthansa veteran Harry Hohmeister, previously responsible for “Global Markets and Network Management”, and former McKinsey consultant Detlef Kayser, board member for “Fleet and Technology”, end at the end of June. Both are close to the age limit of 60, above which, according to unwritten corporate practice, no board member should be active.

The fact that Christina Foerster, the only woman on the committee, is leaving “by mutual consent” may have something to do with the accumulated negative experiences of customers on Lufthansa flights. The “Customer Experience” for which she was responsible was put to tough tests during and after the Corona crisis – through constantly busy hotlines, flight cancellations, outdated cabin equipment and IT difficulties. Foerster was not solely responsible for the service disaster, but he also did not manage to gain the appropriate authority, say Lufthansa insiders. When it comes to sustainability, however, the manager has delivered the environmental tickets that are respected throughout the industry with the “Green Fares”.

Swiss boss Vranckx and ex-Airbus manager Vittadini are coming

The search for a new CFO has already begun, as Steenbergen is leaving on May 7th. Human resources director Michael Niggemann is temporarily responsible for finances and is the only one remaining on the group board alongside Spohr. Until then, one of the 49-year-old lawyer’s most urgent tasks is to resolve the numerous collective bargaining disputes within the group and the associated risk of permanent strikes. On Thursday, another construction site was added with the strike vote initiated by the flight attendant union UFO.

The supervisory board named the head of the model subsidiary Swiss, Dieter Vranckx, and the former Airbus and Rolls-Royce manager Grazia Vittadini as new board members with a lot of international experience. The aviation engineer is considered a confidante of the up-and-coming Lufthansa supervisory board member Tom Enders and is expected to take over the “Technology and IT” department as head of technology. Their task of harmonizing the group-wide IT is considered a “hellish job” because of the numerous different systems, which is likely to become a little more complicated with the planned takeover of the Italian ITA, which has not yet been approved by the EU.

Spohr’s contract runs until 2028

The Supervisory Board is surprisingly open in demanding more cooperation and harmony from its top staff in the future: “Interaction with our customers, investors, partners, but also cooperation within the Lufthansa Group requires, more than ever, a strong understanding of teamwork.” This should then also go to CEO Spohr, who still has a contract until 2028 and is supposed to find a successor by then.