Lufthansa Shuffles Senior Executives

Lufthansa’s passenger airline division will be led by four new executives after a wide-ranging leadership reshuffle early next year.

The airline’s incoming CEO Carsten Spohr appointed Thomas Kluehr, Kay Kratky and Jens Bischof as new members of the executive board, effective April 1, 2011. Kluehr will be in charge of the Munich hub and the point-to-point routes, while Kratky will take over Frankfurt and flight operations. Bischof takes over sales.

Kluehr, 48, has been running the Munich hub in his last position and was also in charge of the Climb 2011 project, which aims at cutting costs by €1 billion ($1.332 billion) by the end of 2011. One key element of the Climb effort is to turn around the unprofitable point-to-point operation, an issue that Kluehr will now be dealing with on a permanent basis in his new role.

Kratky started his career as a pilot at Lufthansa in 1979 and served in senior flight operations positions at Lufthansa Cargo until 2008. He was then sent to Shenzhen, China, to turn around the group’s Chinese affiliate Jade Cargo as managing director. Bischof was charged with integrating Swiss International Air Lines in 2005 and 2006 before moving to New York as head of the airline’s North and South American sales organization.

The three are replacing Juergen Raps, who will retire as head of flight operations next year when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 60. Thierry Antinori, currently head of sales and marketing, was promoted to CEO of Austrian Airlines, while Karl-Ulrich Garnadt will become CEO of Lufthansa Cargo.

As part of the reorganization, Spohr is introducing an even more stringent separation of the Frankfurt and Munich divisions within Lufthansa. The two organizations will become effectively separate airlines with corporate functions, staff, infrastructure, cabin and flight operations departments, as well as commercial functions. The two hubs will be positioned as internal competition also for the group’s other carriers, such as Austrian, Swiss and Brussels Airlines.