Jens Fehlinger, a longtime Lufthansa Group executive, will be the new CEO of Swiss International Airlines (Swiss) as of Oct. 1. Swiss is one of the airlines that make up the Lufthansa Group, which also operates Lufthansa Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings. Fehlinger will succeed Dieter Vranckx, who will become a member of the Lufthansa Group executive board as of July 1. Heike Birlenbach, chief commercial officer for Swiss, will act as interim CEO until Fehlinger takes over.

Fehlinger, who is 43, started his professional career at the Lufthansa Group in 2006, where he held various management positions. Among other things, he was in charge of strategy and business development at Lufthansa Airlines and operational performance management for Lufthansa Group. During the Covid pandemic, he was responsible for the group’s crisis management office and subsequently headed the ReNew restructuring project. In recent years, Fehlinger has been co-managing director of Lufthansa Cityline and at the same time served as managing director of the new carrier, Lufthansa City Airlines.