Carsten Spohr

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.

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.

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. During the Hannover Messe in April 2016, he was among the 15 German CEOs who were invited to a private dinner with Obama. Since 2013, Spohr has accompanied Chancellor Angela Merkel on a total of three state visits abroad, including to China (2014) and Abu Dhabi (2017).

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.