Lufthansa Group will enhance its commercial and business unit and thus emphasize its commitment to Africa with a higher ranked management level to be established in Johannesburg. Mr. René Koinzack has been appointed as the Senior Director Sales for Southern & East Africa, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, Lufthansa Group Airlines. He started his new role this December 2023, will steer and further develop the commercial and sales activities for all Lufthansa Group Airlines (Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Discover Airlines, Edelweiss, Eurowings, Lufthansa and SWISS) within his newly allocated sales region comprising of 24 countries.
These countries have been formerly steered out of Brussels together with all remaining Sub-Saharan markets. With this step the leading airline group in Europe wants to get closer to its customers in these growing and dynamic African markets.
Lufthansa Group offers currently more than 90 weekly departures from Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe year around to their hubs in Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich. During the last three years Lufthansa Group did open five new routes in these markets besides resuming most routes it offered before the COVID pandemic.
In 2024 Lufthansa Group plans to growth further in Africa and will add as of summer 2024 Johannesburg to Munich with Lufthansa as well as Nairobi to Brussels with Brussels Airlines to his schedule.
René Koinzack will report to Mr Heinrich Lange, Vice President Sales EMEA Lufthansa Group Airlines. “Lufthansa Group not only stays committed to these dynamic and growing African markets. With appointing one of our most experienced sales managers of our company, we want to actively strengthen our position and commercial offer in this region,” says Heinrich Lange. “We build upon his valuable experience in various sales markets for him to further develop a trustful relationship, already established with our business partners and customers. Lufthansa Group is a traditional player in Africa, being dedicated to many Sub-Saharan countries, also through various ESG projects.”
René Koinzack was born in Cottbus, Germany. He studied Tourism Management at the University of Applied Science in Wernigerode, Germany and earn his Diploma in 2004. Right after his studies at university, he joined the Lufthansa Group in February 2004 in Moscow as a Marketing Manager for Russia and C.I.S. In 2008, he took over the role as Head of Business Development for that region. In 2012, he moved to London to take over the role as Head of Business Development for UK, Ireland and Iceland. Between 2015 and 2021 he had been based in Kyiv, Ukraine as General Manager Sales and was responsible for the sales activities in Ukraine, South Caucasus, Belarus and Turkmenistan. In his most recent position was in charge as General Manager for Poland and Czech Republic for the Lufthansa Group out of Warsaw/Poland since 2021. René Koinzack is married and will move with his family to South Africa.
