Dieter Vranckx to become the new Brussels Airlines CEO

Invited by LN24 this morning, Brussels Airlines’ Chairman of the Board Count Etienne Davignon announced that the number 2 of the airline, Belgian CFO Dieter Vranckx, will become the new CEO of the Belgian airline.

A logical choice, says Davignon, after an unforeseen circumstance as on Tuesday, Lufthansa announced that Christine Foerster would leave Brussels Airlines for a new adventure with mother company Lufthansa as head of “Customer and Corporate Responsibility”.

Vranckx has a tough job to bring the company back to profitability by 2022, it has been known for some time that Brussels Airlines is working on a future plan, called “Reboot”. A targeted profit margin of at least 8 percent will enable Brussels Airlines to reinvest in the fleet, in innovation and in jobs. Indeed, the average profit margin is currently around 0 percent and for an airline that is not a healthy situation.

Vranckx has a long past in aviation. He started his career in 1998 with Sabena until the bankruptcy of the company in 2001, but from 1999 he also worked for Swissair, which owned 49% of Sabnea and also went belly up in 2001. Later, he was hired by Swiss WorldCargo, a division of newly founded SWISS International Air Lines. In 2010 he joined Lufthansa Cargo as Director for the US Midwest and Canada before returning to SWISS in 2013 as Vice President Switzerland-Germany-Austria. In 2015 he was again at Lufthansa as Vice President Asia-Pacific until May 2018 when he returned to Belgium of CFO of Brussels Airlines.