Plain Speaking With Klaus Holler

     When Lufthansa Cargo wanted the best location to operate cargo headquarters in the Americas, the German national carrier settled in on Atlanta, Georgia.
     “Atlanta,” said Joachim Haas who was top executive for the carrier’s cargo effort at the time, “offers central location, a great international city and airport, a wonderful standard of living and low cost as compared to others.”
     The world has spun around quite a few times since Haas (now retired) uttered those words, and new generations of cargo executives have come and gone.
     Yet Lufthansa Cargo USA continues its growing world business in booming Atlanta.
Klaus Holler has served as Lufthansa Cargo Head of Area Management Americas since May 2006.
He eased into the move to top USA post with exceptional air cargo experience in America, Europe and Asia.
Mr. Holler knows the drive for bigger and better starts on the ground because at one time he was smack dab in the middle as the go-to individual as top gun at the critical Lufthansa Cargo Center in Frankfurt.
Klaus also understands the importance of traffic flow and the “keep it simple” concept having served as a top ground executive at the Lufthansa Cargo hub at Sharjah.
In America a few years ago when he was chief operations officer for Lufthansa Cargo, Mr. Holler celebrated his 60th birthday with a gift from his people of a classic Fender electric guitar, the kind the legendary Les Paul plays.
But Mr. Holler is no one man band.

     Instead some others musically inclined from Lufthansa Cargo gather together and enjoy rock sessions on an ad hoc basis.
     Eine Kleine Fracht Musik indeed.
     “Better service starts on the ground.
     “The shortest distance that air cargo moves is from acceptance, through the warehouse and back again on the same path to the pick up area.
     “How well consignments are handled across that space is the major driving force in success or failure in the air cargo business today.”
     Mr. Holler is somebody who knows about the importance of ground in the air cargo matrix.
     In America, it is safe to say that not since the legendary Peter Hees wrote the book on operations for world air cargo at Lufthansa’s legendary “nose dock” Building 263 at JFK during the last quarter of the 20th century, has the airline fielded a USA head of cargo with Klaus Holler’s service credentials.
     “We face the challenge of maintaining our position through quality, service and reliability and of building trust, as reliable partners for our customers.
     “Lufthansa Cargo is doing just that and we are getting better all the time.
     “We are also offering more customer-specific solutions such as door-to-door freight pick-up and delivery, optimized dock management with dedicated BUP doors, improved import and export processes, considerably simplified booking and capacity access processes including booking of BUPs via electronic channels such as GF-X and more.”
     Born in Würzburg, Germany Mr. Holler is married and has two daughters.
     Not a desk-bound executive by nature, Klaus Holler spends a good deal of time on the road traveling the broad American continent.
     “Customer visits take up a large part of my time.
     “We are making new friends all the time by responding to our service partners’ needs, and maybe even more importantly listening to them.
     “Lufthansa Cargo today is products and services from a single source, faster decisions and enhanced service delivery competence at a local level.”
Geoffrey

Lufthansa Numbers Rising

     “All the business segments of the group played a role in this success, whereby the passenger business made the largest contribution,” Lufthansa said in a statement.
     “During the first half of 2007, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group welcomed 27 million passengers on board – a record figure in the company’s history. In this case, the continued positive development on the European market deserves a special mention. The expansion of the global network of routes and the successful marketing of the betterFly offers (a discount fare program), in Germany and Europe have also paid off,” the company said.
     Lufthansa previously said the cargo division transported 877,000 tons of cargo and mail in the first half, which is 2.8% up on the previous year’s level. The cargo load factor was up by 1.3 percentage points, to 68.5%.
     The airline said overall capacity utilization in the passenger and airfreight business improved in the first six months to 72.9% an increase of 1.7 percentage points.
     The successful result during the first half of the year also included the performance by SWISS, which was fully integrated into the Lufthansa Group on July 1.      “Together we will be able to open up new markets for profitable growth even more successfully,” said Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber.
     “The result underlines the success of our strategy to continually and selectively invest in products, to place customer orientation at the fore and to keep an eye on the costs,” Mayrhuber said. “The quality and distinct service orientation of our staff has enabled us to win over a record number of customers in the first half of the year.”
     Mayrhuber predicted that the group would continue to grow in profitability while Lufthansa also continues to improve quality.
George Frey