Airberlin completes restructuring of its Management Board

BERLIN, Germany – Airberlin CEO Stefan Pichler has largely completed the substantial restructuring of the airberlin Management Team by February 22nd, 2016. With Neil Mills as the new CSPO and Oliver Iffert as the new COO airberlin has been able to get two internationally experienced top executives on board.

Neil Mills (45) has been appointed Chief Strategy & Planning Officer (CSPO), taking over responsibility for Network Planning and Alliances, Procurement and the subsidiaries Leisure Cargo and airberlin technik as well as Facility Management. He will push the development of airberlin focusing on cost reduction and sustainable improvement of productivity. The proven expert in aviation industry started his career with Easy Jet in 1997. 2009 Neil became CFO with Fly Dubai, one of the fastest growing LCC’s in the world. After that he took over the CEO position with Spice Jet in India. Most recently he joined the Philippine Airlines Group as Chief Executive Advisor to lead their turnaround team.

Oliver Iffert (46) was appointed Chief Operations Officer (COO) of airberlin leading Flight Operations, Cabin Crew, Network Operations, Airport Operations and Maintenance Systems. Oliver started his career as First Officer B737 with airberlin in 1997 and worked for LTU until 2004. After that he changed to Etihad Airways where he held various functions, most recently as Vice President Flight Operations. Captain Iffert brings more then 20 years of experience on board commercial airplanes and currently flies the Airbus A330/340.

As Accountable Manager, Oliver Lackmann (47) continues to hold the overall executive responsibility for running all operational activities, including Flight Operations, Crew Planning and Training as well as Operations Compliance and Safety, Aviation Security and Network Operations. Oliver will report into the newly appointed Chief Operations Officer, Oliver Iffert. Marco Ciomperlik (40) takes over the newly created position of Director Group Synergies. In this regard he will drive the commercial and administrative level of networking among the European airberlin partner airlines and will work closely together with the CEOs of all partner airlines.

Stefan Pichler, CEO airberlin: „We have already initiated the necessary actions to improve our profitability and reduce our costs and have generated some first success stories. We will continue to consistently follow this path. The remodeling of the airberlin Management Board is an important element of the new strategy. With Neil Mills and Oliver Iffert we have gained two experienced airline executives with an international background, who will drive airberlin’s organisational development within their core business fields.“