The long-standing Lufthansa manager takes over the chief position at the Canadian airline Westjet.
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt Alexis von Hoensbroech knows crises well enough. Years ago, the aviation manager started an extensive savings program at Lufthansa Cargo. The 51-year-old successfully steered the Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines (AUA) through the pandemic until the turn of the year.
Difficult situations are likely to have lost any horror for von Hoensbroech. That’s a good thing, because the next challenge is already waiting. If he takes over the senior position at Westjet in a few weeks, he will have to quickly solve a problem: The Canadian airline suffers severely from a lack of staff.
There are several reasons for this. The airline had significantly reduced its workforce at the beginning of the pandemic. Around 700 pilots had to leave the company. The cabin crew has also been significantly reduced.
Now that staff often have to call in sick temporarily because of a corona infection, the airline has no buffer to compensate for the failures.
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As a result, Westjet had to cancel around 15 percent of its planned flights for January. Specifically: up to 70 of the 450 flights will not take place. In the days just before New Year’s Eve, the situation escalated so much that the airline management even had to cancel several hundred connections at short notice.
Many airlines are currently struggling with the problem, especially in those countries where the highly contagious Omikron variant is already widespread. But Westjet is particularly hard hit because of the radical shrinkage course. In addition, there is persistent winter weather in Canada, which hinders air traffic.
More independence at Westjet
Westjet now wants to bring back many of the laid-off employees – a project for which Hoensbroech will soon be responsible. The father of five will start his new job in the first quarter. AUA has already released him – a common practice because he is switching to the competition.
“Anyone who knows Alexis knows that he will immediately jump into his new task with full power,” says a former companion from Lufthansa times. Von Hoensbroech himself speaks of the time “to break for new shores and to take on an entrepreneurial task outside the Lufthansa Group”.
The manager should also hope to be able to make more independent decisions at Westjet than in his previous job. AUA is a separate airline in the Lufthansa Group, but strategic decisions such as the overdue fleet modernization are made at the Group’s headquarters in Frankfurt.
In addition: Even if Hoensbroech was given higher responsibilities by industry experts, the manager was denied his position on the Group’s board of directors until the end. “But being more or less a division manager was not enough for him in the long run,” said the companion.
Westjet, on the other hand, does not belong to a large airline group, but to the Canadian subsidiary Onex Corporation. The aviation expert should have more entrepreneurial freedom here as long as he keeps Westjet on the road to success. In addition, with around 170 aircraft, the airline is almost three times the size of AUA.
The Canadian airline Westjet has to cancel numerous flights because staff have contracted Corona.
(Photo: Reuters)
Von Hoensbroech is an experienced manager in the industry. In Lufthansa circles he has long been traded as the potential successor to CEO Carsten Spohr.
Since Spohr will lead Europe’s largest airline group for some time, von Hoensbroech was looking for new tasks beyond the group. A few months ago he was also traded as the new head of the Scandinavian SAS.
The native of Cologne, whose full name is Alexis Graf von und zu Hoensbroech and comes from an old noble family, showed at AUA that he can also cope with severe crises. In 2020 he negotiated the Austrian part of the rescue package for the Lufthansa Group. In doing so, he wrested clear concessions from the employee representatives, which were a prerequisite for the aid of the state.
Von Hoensbroech studied physics at the University of Bonn and did his doctorate in astrophysics. Again and again the scientist speaks up on the topic of climate protection and tries to objectify the debates, some of which are emotional, with technical advice.
Before the station in Vienna, von Hoensbroech was Director of Sales at Lufthansa Cargo. Before that, he worked in various positions in the group. Among other things, he was responsible for the integration of AUA, which was taken over in 2008. The former consultant of the Boston Consulting Group started his career at “Hansa” in 2005.
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