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Former Lufthansa boss Mayrhuber dies aged 71

December 03, 2018 at 06:32 am EST

BERLIN (Reuters) - Wolfgang Mayrhuber, the long-serving chairman and chief executive of Lufthansa, has died at the age of 71 after a serious illness, the German airline said on Monday.

"Wolfgang Mayrhuber has served and shaped our company for more than 45 years. We Lufthansa employees thank him for his great service to the Lufthansa Group. Our thoughts are now with his family," CEO Carsten Spohr said in a statement.

Mayrhuber resigned as chairman of Lufthansa's supervisory board last September, six months before the end of his term, and was replaced by former finance chief Karl-Ludwig Kley.

Mayrhuber, an Austrian, joined Lufthansa as an engineer in 1970, and became head of Lufthansa's technical services subsidiary in 1994, before joining the executive board in 2001 with responsibility for passenger services.

He served as CEO from 2003 to 2010 and pursued an aggressive acquisition drive, buying up rivals like SWISS and Austrian Airlines, and then as chairman from 2013 to 2017.

But analysts viewed his results as mixed, as Germany's biggest airline had to suspend its dividend twice and slash costs as part of a painful strategic overhaul.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Stocks mentioned in the article

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LUFTHANSA	6.742 EUR	-0.15%	+5.44%	8.6B
EON SE	12.52 EUR	+0.36%	+3.69%	34.68B
SWISS RE LTD	101.8 CHF	+2.57%	+4.10%	31.63B

Wolfgang Mayrhuber

Wolfgang Mayrhuber held several positions in different companies throughout his career.
He started as an undergraduate at HTL Steyr.
He then worked at Infineon Technologies AG, Lufthansa Technik AG, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Austrian Airlines AG, Thomas Cook GmbH, and HEICO Corp.
as a member of the supervisory board.
He also worked at Deutsche Lufthansa AG as Chairman of the Executive Board and later as Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
Additionally, he was an independent director at UBS AG and a member of the Governors Board at the International Air Transport Association.
He was also a trustee emeritus at the American Academy in Berlin GmbH.
Finally, he was a director at several companies, including Lufthansa CityLine GmbH, Swiss International Air Lines AG, LSG Airline Catering & Retail GmbH, SN Airholding SA, Eurowings Luftverkehrs AG, ÖLH Österreichische Luftverkehrs-Holding GmbH, and Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide.

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