Lufthansa Cargo announces structural changes
Lufthansa Cargo will reduce its sales regions from seven to five areas as part of efforts to simplify its process structures.
The changes will see the sales regions of North and South America merged into a single America region, while the Eastern & Northern Europe region will be merged with Western Europe into a single Europe region.
The previous region of Middle East & Africa will be expanded to include the markets of South Asia & the CIS region.
The Germany region will also now include Austria and Switzerland. South Asia will no longer be part of the Asia region as outlined above.
The carrier hopes the changes will “enhance the focus on the customer, simplify the structure to increase speed to market and support the new phase of growth of Lufthansa Cargo”.
Along with the new regional arrangement come several changes in personnel.
Chicago-based Stephanie Abeler, formerly head of sales and handling Midwest US, takes over the responsibilities of the newly created America region.
The previous jobholders Bernd Kindelbacher and Carsten Hernig are “devoting themselves to new tasks”.
New at Lufthansa Cargo, Oliver von Götz is head of region Europe LCAG, replacing the previous jobholders Annette Kreuziger and Thomas Egnolf.
Prior to joining Lufthansa Cargo, Götz was head of corporate airline strategy and business development at Lufthansa Airlines.
The new Middle East, Africa, South Asia & CIS region will be led by André Schulz, who was previously general manager Southern and East Africa in Johannesburg at Deutsche Lufthansa.
He succeeds Frank Beilner, who will be taking on new responsibilities.
Achim Martinka, who has headed Lufthansa Cargo’s German sales as vice president Germany since summer 2019, has expanded his area of responsibility to include the markets Austria and Switzerland, leading the newly created DACH sales region.
The structure of the Asia Pacific region under the responsibility of J. Florian Pfaff from Singapore remains unchanged, except for the future management of the South Asia market region by Schulz.
Digital Sales, which was previously a head office function, is now defined as a customer-facing function, led by Marcel Kling.
All managers of the sales regions as well digital sales will report to Ashwin Bhat, the chief commercial officer of Lufthansa Cargo.
Baht said: “The mergers of regions as well as the new appointments are vital adjustments for us to combine our strengths, exploit synergies and thus respond even better to market trends.
“Internally, we are simplifying our process structures, and externally we continue to be a strong partner for our customers.
“I am happy that we could attract and nominate new managers from within the Lufthansa Group.
“With their experience and diverse knowledge, I am confident we will continue to enrich Lufthansa Cargo’s leadership in the air cargo market in the years ahead.”
He thanked Annette Kreuziger, Bernhard Kindelbacher, Frank Beilner, Thomas Egenholf and Carsten Hernig for their “leadership and contribution to the success of Lufthansa Cargo in the last years”.