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. 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.

On 1 May 2014 Spohr 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. According to his profile on Bloomberg, his annual compensation amounted to around €2.7 million in 2015. Both in 2019 and in 2023, Spohr's contract was extended for five years.

Spohr described the Germanwings Flight 9525 disaster as "the darkest day for Lufthansa in its 60-year history". In the following years, Spohr guided the company through a collapse in demand triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and a subsequent government bailout that saw the state take a 20% stake in the company. Since 2013, Spohr has accompanied Chancellor Angela Merkel on a total of three state visits abroad, including to China (2014) and Abu Dhabi (2017).

Other activities Corporate boards Munich Re, Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2020) Lufthansa Technik, Chairman of the Supervisory Board (since 2014) ThyssenKrupp, Member of the Supervisory Board (2013–2019) Oetker Group, Member of the Advisory Board (2014-2018)

Non-profits Baden-Badener Unternehmer-Gespräche (BBUG), Member of the Board European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), Member of the Board of Trustees Federation of German Industries (BDI), Member of the Presidium (2017-2019) Rheingau Musik Festival, Member of the Board of Trustees

Personal life Spohr is married and has two daughters. He and his family currently live in Munich.