Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr has extended five years at the helm of the German airline giant that the German state saved in 2020 from bankruptcy at the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Lufthansa’s Supervisory Board has appointed Carsten Spohr as CEO for another five years,” according to a group statement published Thursday on the eve of the company’s annual results presentation.
Carsten Spohr has been at the helm of Lufthansa since 2014 and his contract has been extended until the end of December 2028.
CFO Remco Steenbergen is also due to be extended in this position for another five years.
The two leaders “will be particularly important in ensuring a prosperous future for the Lufthansa Group,” Karl-Ludwig Kley, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said in this press release.
bailout plan of 9 billion euros
Carsten Spohr, a former airline pilot for the company, “not only overcame the most difficult crises and challenges” at the time of the Covid-19 crisis that grounded air transport for months, “but was also responsible one of the three most successful years in the group’s history” in terms of financial performance, continues Karl-Ludwig Kley.
These appointments must be ratified by the shareholders’ meeting that will be held in early May in virtual mode.
Lufthansa is expected to announce on Friday that it has returned to profit in 2022, after two years of heavy losses, buoyed by a strong recovery in air travel after restrictions during the pandemic.
Its key indicator, adjusted operating profit, should reach 1,500 million euros, according to the group’s latest forecast and against a loss of 2,350 million in 2021.
The group, which includes Austrian, Swiss, Eurowings and Brussels Airlines along with Lufthansa, is also in the process of taking control of Italian public company ITA Airways, currently in poor condition.
In September, the German State sold all its remaining shares in Lufthansa, where it had entered 20% in 2020 during a rescue plan of 9,000 million euros in the face of the health crisis.
Source: BFM TV
