Dr Andre Schulz : Spreading Lufthansa’s wings across the Mauritian sky

The General Manager of Lufthansa for Southern Africa was in Mauritius recently in the context of the first Eurowings flight between Cologne and Plaisance. He comes back on his career path and talks about the group’s plans for the island.

German-born Andre Schulz, 38, was appointed as General Manager of Lufthansa for Southern Africa in April last year. One of the first missions he led once in position was a market study in Mauritius to explore the potential of the island to attract German tourists. Since then, Lufthansa has decided to connect Frankfurt, Vienna and Cologne to Mauritius through its main airline as well as its subsidiaries, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings. In October, another subsidiary of the lar-gest German airline, Edelweiss Air, will serve the island while operating from Zürich Airport.

To be chosen by Lufthansa as a Management Trainee and Executive Assistant, one needs to have the right combination of skills, personality and luck. The German aviation giant – Lufthansa’s revenue reached an outstanding 31.2 billion euros last year – only selects ten trainees a year in that position and in April 2008, Andre Schulz had the opportunity to assist one of the Lufthansa board members on hub management. As part of his commitment, he thus became acquainted with the other board members of the group. However, along with such privileges, came the pressure to reach the required level of performance. “It is the kind of job where people figure out very quickly whether you are a smart guy or just someone very lucky”, Andre Schulz observes.

The trainee’s superiors soon became aware of the proficiency he was able to show in fulfilling the assignments given to him. In consequence, after a year, Andre Schulz was retained to occupy the post of Senior Project Manager responsible for the implementation of the European-Japanese joint venture between Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines and All Nippon Airways in July 2009. Three years later, he was promoted to the position of Head of Marketing and Pricing for Lufthansa in Eastern Europe. Based in Budapest, Hungary, Andre Schulz had to ensure that the group’s online marketing strategy was successfully developed in that region. It was quite challenging as Eastern Europe is not as digitally connected as Western and Northern Europe; online revenue amounts to 15% only in that part of the continent in comparison to 40 to 50% in Great Britain and Scandinavian countries, for instance.

Andre Schulz holds a doctorate in International Management, Magna cum laude, from the German University of Witten/Herdecke and is of the opinion that the knowledge he has acquired in the field of cultural diversity during his years of study (2004-2009) proved very useful to establish a strong business relationship with people in Eastern Europe and later on, South Africa. The culture in these two parts of the world, Andre Schulz goes on to say, is completely different from that of his country of origin. “In Germany, during business meetings, people seek facts and figures while in Eastern Europe or South Africa, people seek to meet first around a meal and then talk business”, he explains. And what about Mauritius? The current GM of Lufthansa for Southern Africa considers that the business atmosphere is friendlier here than in most places he has travelled to, as part of his professional responsibilities. “In Mauritius, though all the people participating in a meeting know its objective, they are very relaxed; the interaction is open and honest”, he comments.

Before his doctorate, Andre Schulz studied from 1998 to 2004 at the University of Düsseldorf where he obtained his Master of Business Administration. In 2003, during his last year of study in Düsseldorf, he had a chance to taste the Lufthansa corporate culture through an internship. This was a dream-come-true experience for the student since, deep inside, he always nurtured the ambition to work for a big airline. This first exposure to the operating model of Lufthansa confirmed Andre Schulz’s passion for the aviation industry so much so that he told himself that one day, he would wear again the yellow identity card given by the airline to its employees. It took him five years to do so. He was 30 at that time.

Seven years later, in 2015, Andre Schulz became GM of Lufthansa for Southern Africa. Shortly before he took up his new office, one of his mentors informed him that the company believes he “can rock Southern Africa”. To climb up the ladder in an international corporate body like Lufthansa, the GM adds, “someone has to believe in you and think that you have the social skills and intercultural competence to represent the group in a completely different environment than the one in Frankfurt”.

One of the reasons why Andre Schulz chose to extend Lufthansa flights to Mauritius is that he estimates that the Mauritius-Frankfurt route can in time become an alternative to the ones linking the island to London or Paris. He argues that local travel agents can sell the Mauritius-Frankfurt route as an option to Mauritians who are planning to visit their families or study in Europe and on other continents. As a major player of the aviation industry, Lufthansa actually operates from its largest hub, Frankfurt Airport, to an array of destinations – more than 200 – around the globe.

Furthermore, the Mauritian destination is important for the GM of Lufthansa for Sou-thern Africa as part of the implementation of the group’s expansion strategy in the region. According to Andre Schulz, when he arrived on the island in June 2015, he understood very quickly that our hotels and resorts as well as other tourist attractions match what German tourists are looking for. Besides, the arrival of Edelweiss Air in the Mauritian sky in a few months’ time, Schulz believes, will be a step forward for the German group to become the island’s natural bridge to Europe.

When he is away from the professional arena, Andre Schulz likes to spend time with his family. He is married and has three children: two daughters and one son. The Schulz family moved from Budapest to settle in Johannesburg in 2015 when Andre had to assume his new duties. One of his favorite sports, he concedes, is golf. Having been around some of the golf courses in South Africa, he thinks they are among the most beautiful he has had the opportunity to play on till now. He admits, though, he has not yet set foot on Mauritian golf courses even if he has heard about them. Apart from golf, Andre Schulz enjoys reading in his spare time. At the moment, he is discovering Nelson Mandela’s autobiographical work, Long Walk to Freedom, translated in his native German. Getting to know the history of one’s host country through that of its most famous President is an ideal way, one would say, to understand its people, culture, in one word, of integrating.