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 Eurowings Executive Board and Chief Operating Officer
Matthias Spohr has been a member of the Eurowings Executive Board and the airline’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) since October 2026. His areas of responsibility include Crew Operations, Flight Operations, Ground Operations & IOCC, Safety, Security & Compliance Monitoring, Crew Training and Technical Fleet Management / Eurowings Technik.
From 2021 until joining the Eurowings Executive Board, Matthias Spohr served as Managing Director of Lufthansa Aviation Training GmbH. In this role, he oversaw the transformation and successful relaunch of the European Flight Academy. He also drove the strategic development of Pilot Training, strengthened new business areas and consolidated further activities within the ‘Beyond Aviation Training’ Product Division.
From 2015 to 2021, Matthias Spohr served as Head of Flight Operations at Eurowings Deutschland and as Nominated Person Flight Operations. Before that, he joined Germanwings as Head of the A320 Fleet in 2013. Spohr began his aviation career in 1990 with pilot training at the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen. From 1995, he flew Airbus A320 and A340 aircraft for Lufthansa. In 2005, he qualified as an Airbus A320 captain at Condor Berlin. Before joining Lufthansa, he studied economics at Ruhr University Bochum, graduating with a degree in economics.
Matthias Spohr is married and has three children.