Massive structural changes at Lufthansa Cargo’s product and sales department will improve the airline’s ability to respond swiftly to ever-changing global market demands.
Lufthansa Cargo said in a statement that the structural and personnel changes to the department would serve strategic purposes.
From now on, seven sales regions will be mapped into five, which the airline said would enhance its focus on the customer and simplify the structure to increase speed to market and support the new phase of growth in its cargo business. The changes, which came into effect on November 1, include new appointments of personnel and adjusted responsibilities.
Lufthansa Cargo chief commercial officer, Ashwin Bhat, said the adjustments would enable the firm to respond more effectively to market demands.
"The mergers of regions as well as the new appointments are vital adjustments for us to combine our strengths, exploit synergies, and 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,” Bhat said.
He added that he was happy that the firm had been able to attract and nominate new managers from within the Lufthansa Group.
According to the latest structural changes, the sales regions of North and South America will be merged into one region, called Americas. Stephanie Abeler, formerly head of sales and handling Midwest USA, has taken over the responsibilities of the new region. Abeler will continue to be based in Chicago.
Eastern, Northern and Western Europe regions, previously managed separately, will now be managed as a single European region with Oliver von Goetz in charge, replacing Annette Kreuziger and Thomas Egenolf. Goetz was head of corporate airline strategy and business development at Lufthansa Airlines before joining Lufthansa Cargo. He is based in Frankfurt.
The previous Middle East and Africa region will be expanded to include the markets of South Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region. André Schulz, who is based in Frankfurt, heads up this region.
Schulz, who was previously general manager Southern and East Africa in Johannesburg at Deutsche Lufthansa AG, 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 2019, has expanded his area of responsibility to include the markets of 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, will remain unchanged, except for the future management of the South Asia market region by Schulz.
Digital sales, which was previously a head office function, has now been enhanced and defined as a customer-facing function. It is led by Marcel Kling.
