Nationality German Children 2 Salary €1,038,000 | Occupation Businessman Name Carsten Spohr | |
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Born 16 December 1966 (age 57) ( 1966-12-16 ) Wanne-Eickel, Germany Alma mater | ||
Lufthansa CEO: Expect more airlines to disappear
ESMT Annual Forum 2018: Keynote by Carsten Spohr
Carsten Spohr (born 16 December 1966) is a German airline executive. Since May 2014 he has been the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Lufthansa.
Contents
- Lufthansa CEO Expect more airlines to disappear
- ESMT Annual Forum 2018 Keynote by Carsten Spohr
- Education
- Career
- Personal life
- References
Education
After graduating with a degree in industrial engineering from the University of Karlsruhe (now part of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Spohr obtained a commercial pilot's license at Lufthansa Flight Training in Bremen and the Airline Training Center Arizona. Spohr continues to maintain this license until the present day. His license allows him to fly the Airbus A320.
Career
After gaining his commercial pilot’s license, Spohr enjoyed a brief role at Deutsche Aerospace AG after enrolling in the company’s management training programme. Following this, Spohr joined Lufthansa in 1994. Between 1995 and 1998, he served as the personal assistant to the CEO of the company. After this role, he moved on to head various regional partnerships at Lufthansa, for example in 1998, he became head of regional partner management. He was then soon appointed to lead the group’s passenger airline strategy. In 2007, he was made CEO of Lufthansa Cargo. In 2011, in recognition of his loyalty to the company, he was invited to join the executive board. On 1 May 2014 he took over from Christoph Franz as Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. During his time as CEO there have been poor industrial relations, with a number of strike actions, due to the push to expand Lufthansa's low-cost airline Germanwings.
Spohr described the Germanwings Flight 9525 disaster as "the darkest day for Lufthansa in its 60-year history".
According to his profile on Bloomberg, his annual compensation amounts to around €2.7 million.
In May 2014, Spohr was one of a number of business executives invited to the White House by U.S. President Barack Obama in a meeting aimed at extending job opportunities from international companies to the U.S. In May 2017, he travelled to Abu Dhabi as part of a business delegation accompanying Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
Personal life
Spohr is married and has two daughters. He and his family currently live in Munich. Spohr’s wife Vivian is head of Lufthansa’s Help Alliance which runs aid projects in numerous countries abroad.