Management
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Commercial Officer
Max Kownatzki has been CEO of Eurowings, Europe’s leading leisure airline under the umbrella of the Lufthansa Group, since 1 February 2026. He brings more than 25 years of international leadership experience across strategy, commercial management, and operations in the global aviation industry. Since April 2020, he has served as CEO of SunExpress, successfully leading the Lufthansa–Turkish Airlines joint venture out of the COVID-19 crisis and delivering record growth and financial results, including a doubling of the fleet, revenues of €2.2 billion and approximately 15 million passengers.
Max previously co-founded Eurowings Europe and served as its Chief Commercial Officer, later assuming responsibility for business development at Eurowings as Senior Vice President. Earlier in his career, he was a Senior Partner at Oliver Wyman, advising international airlines, and held senior strategy roles at the Jetstar Group, a subsidiary of Qantas, and within the Lufthansa Group, including network planning, fleet and strategic alliances.
Max is German-American and holds a doctoral degree in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen / Switzerland. He is a licensed commercial pilot and father of two.
Member of the Eurowings Executive Board, HR, Finance & IT
Kay Duve, born 1968 in Hamburg, has been a member of the Eurowings Executive Board since February 1, 2022. He is responsible for Human Resources, Finance, IT, Strategy and Procurement.
From 2016 until his move to the Executive Board of Eurowings, Kai Duve was in charge of the division Cabin Crews Frankfurt at Lufthansa Airlines and had management responsibility for 15,000 flight attendants and pursers at Lufthansa in Frankfurt and at the foreign bases in Bangkok and New Delhi since 2016. Prior to that, the industrial engineer was responsible for corporate auditing at Lufthansa Group from 2009 to 2015. Between 2002 and 2009, Kai Duve gained many years of international experience as Director Finance & HR Asia/Pacific at Deutsche Lufthansa AG, based in Singapore, and as Director HR North America in New York. Kai Duve started his career in 1998, in the controlling department of Lufthansa Technik.
Kai Duve is married and has three children.
Member of the Management Board of Eurowings and Chief Operating Officer
Edi Wolfensberger, a Swiss citizen, has been a member of the Eurowings Executive Board since April 2022 and is also the airline's Chief Operating Officer (COO). He is responsible for Crew Operations, Flight Operations, Ground & Customer Operations, Safety, Security & Compliance, Lean Management and Eurowings Technik.
From 2019 until his move to the Eurowings Executive Board, Edi Wolfensberger was Chief Operating Officer at Brussels Airlines, where he headed all operational departments. He also served as Accountable Manager of the Belgian airline. Prior to that, Wolfensberger was Managing Director of Lufthansa Aviation Training Switzerland AG, where he established the cooperation between the newly merged companies within the Lufthansa Aviation Training Group from 2017 to 2019. As Managing Director at Airline Training Center Arizona, he was instrumental in the turnaround of the Phoenix-based company between 2015 and 2017. Edi Wolfensberger began his career in the aviation industry in 2007 at Swiss International Airlines in the controlling department for maintenance and technology, after which he held various positions in the areas Finance and Commercial.
Edi Wolfensberger is married and has two children.