If you've flown as a pilot in an airplane cockpit for a few years, you're used to some turbulence. Ten years ago, however, Carsten Spohr would certainly have liked his start at the top of the Lufthansa Group to have been less turbulent. At that time there was a lengthy search for a suitable CEO, and by the end of the process Spohr was almost viewed as kind of backup candidate. But Spohr is not one to dwell on the past. He had already been working at Lufthansa for decades when he took office in May 2014, and therefore needed no training period before he could get started. Today the 57-year-old is firmly in the saddle, and has a contract until the end of 2028. He will then be 62 years old and, in his case, nobody is paying much attention to the usual Lufthansa management age limit of 60.

As a pilot and industrial engineer, Spohr is actually the ideal choice for the technology-driven Lufthansa. Add to that his self-confident presence, which leaves no room for doubt about his decisiveness and rigorous implementation. Spohr's predecessor Christoph Franz, who was soft-spoken and analytical, was much criticised, especially as he had not even spent his entire career with the airline, which made matters worse internally. Supporters of Spohr were proven right. Excluding the upheavals of the pandemic, the company has reliably generated billions in profits. After several years of missing out, shareholders are once again getting a dividend for 2023, which should lift their mood despite the modest share price performance. And even the crisis management following the Germanwings disaster in the spring of 2015 was managed brilliantly by Munich-based Spohr.

But the critical voices are getting louder, especially those who think the group would benefit from more external input. They say that Spohr is too firmly rooted in the Lufthansa world, and does not think outside the box enough. All the good news that the father of two daughters has produced in his ten years at the helm cannot hide the fact that the CEO also has a lot of problems to deal with. One example of this is the numerous wage disputes that fray the nerves of every Lufthansa CEO. Even the charismatic Spohr has not managed to permanently pacify the workforce, though the latest agreements with various employee groups could mean that collective bargaining peace could now return.

Lufthansa is also encountering less and less unreserved enthusiasm from customers. In the opinion of many passengers, the competition from the Middle East is miles ahead in terms of service. Spohr has set himself the goal of catching up by investing billions, though there are issues with late deliveries from manufacturers. And there are ambitious goals in terms of climate net zero, but progress is only being made in small steps.

Despite the challenges Lufthansa is facing, it recently looked as if the company's management might not be pulling in the same direction. With Detlef Kayser, Harry Hohmeister, Remco Steenbergen and Christina Foerster leaving the Executive Board in the near future, the gaps have not yet been completely filled. With Grazia Vittadini, a new manager from the outside who is considered to be assertive and ambitious is also joining the Executive Board. When the former Lufthansa CFO Simone Menne commented in an interview many years ago that she had the confidence to lead (!) a company, her career at the airline quickly came to an end. New conflicts could be inevitable.

When Condor CEO Ralf Teckentrup was recently bid farewell with a spectacular ceremony at Düsseldorf Airport, it was clear from Spohr's speech that he was impressed by the atmosphere. A farewell like that is certainly not granted to everyone. The Condor employees not only celebrated Teckentrup for saving the airline, but also for his willingness to change a lot of old habits — for the good of the company. Spohr will say goodbye in four and a half years at the earliest, so it will be interesting to see how his farewell party turns out.