CCO Götz Ahmelmann starts at airberlin with new sales structure

As of 1st July 2014, Götz Ahmelmann (43) has taken up the position of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at airberlin, taking over responsibility for all areas of sales and marketing within the airberlin group with immediate effect. At the same time as Götz Ahmelmann takes up his post, airberlin is restructuring the airline’s sales organisation.

In order to address and look after the various customer groups via the specific sales channels with even greater focus, the sales organisation will be based on three pillars from 1st July 2014.

Detlef Altmann will continue to have responsibility for the whole tour operator business in his position as SVP Tour Operator Sales. This includes the classic tour operator business run by Nicola Gregor, as well as the newly created department of “New Touristic Sales” led by Beate Kassner with a focus on dynamic tour operators.

In his position as SVP Scheduled Sales, Norbert Draskovits will be covering all aspects of agency sales. In addition to Corporate Sales and International Sales, he will also be responsible with immediate effect for the co-operation with touristic travel agencies and travel agency chains as well as the consolidators. In addition he will be responsible for Airline Partners Sales to further strengthen the relationship to our airline partners.

All direct sales channels will be consolidated in a new department Online Sales & Direct Channels headed by Pablo Caspers, Vice President Online Sales & Direct Channels. Pablo Caspers team will be responsible for sales via the web channel, the Service Centre, online travel agencies and group sales.

“With Götz Ahmelmann we have gained a proven expert with many years’ experience. We firmly believe that this structure reflects the optimum set-up to allow our sales team to meet the challenges of the various sales channels and that pooling our back-office support and group sales will at the same time achieve a marked improvement in the efficiency of the organisation”, says Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CEO airberlin.

Götz Ahmelmann comes to us from Deutsche Lufthansa, where he has held various positions since 1996. After working in Product Management and Corporate Strategy, he took over responsibility for the Lufthansa hub in Frankfurt in his capacity as Commercial Director, was responsible for the management, co-ordination and development of Lufthansa’s co-operation partners worldwide, including its Star Alliance partners, before his final appointment as Vice President Sales and Services Europe, which meant that he was responsible for Lufthansa sales in 45 countries as well as ground handling at over 100 airports.

airberlin is one of the leading airlines in Europe and flies to 171 destinations worldwide each year. The second largest airline in Germany carried more than 31.5 million passengers in 2013. airberlin offers a global route network through its strategic partnership with Etihad Airways, which has a 29.21% share in airberlin, and through membership of the oneworld® airline alliance. The airline with the award-winning service operates codeshare flights worldwide with 18 airlines. The fleet has an average age of five years and is among the most modern and eco-efficient in Europe.