Marcus Hagenbruch is the newly appointed General Manager Sales for Lufthansa Group in Israel. Based in Tel Aviv, Hagenbruch will be responsible for the commercial and sales activities for all Lufthansa Group carriers (Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, and SWISS) in Israel. He will report to Peter Pullem, Head of Sales Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, CIS, and Israel Lufthansa Group.
Marcus Hagenbruch (35) brings a wealth of knowledge to his new position from his many years of airline management experience. He has worked in a variety of functions and locations within Lufthansa, starting from Accounting, then Revenue Management, and most recently in Airline Sales. There, Hagenbruch gathered almost four years of significant regional experience as Head of Sales Steering & Business Development for Russia, CIS, and Israel, based in Moscow. For the last eight months and prior to his new position in Tel Aviv, he supported Lufthansa’s Global Market Performance Management in Munich.
Marcus Hagenbruch succeeds Ofer Kisch, who previously held the position for five years and will take over a new responsibility in Israel outside the Lufthansa Group. He concludes his very successful career, steering different managing positions in sales throughout Europe and Israel in the past 32 years.
A farewell event from Kisch was held today (Tuesday) at Ink Hotel in Tel Aviv, with a press conference to boot, where the Group made an important announcement re a significant increase in the number of weekly flights from Tel Aviv.
29 additional flights from Tel Aviv this summer
The Lufthansa Group carriers Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, and Brussels Airlines significantly increase their offer and capacity for the upcoming summer schedule from 44 to 73 weekly connections. All airlines mentioned will offer more departures from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV), especially Austrian Airlines to Vienna and Brussels Airlines to Brussels. With this extended timetable, the Lufthansa Group has almost reached the pre-pandemic capacity of 2019. Compared with last spring and summer 2021, Lufthansa Group forecasts for its Israel flights increased bookings by one-third.
According to the Group’s data, six out of ten passengers from Israel fly beyond the hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, and Brussels, using the airlines’ vast networks. Right now, the tourism or leisure segment enjoys the most substantial development. Among the European trend destinations for this summer, the Icelandic city of Reykjavík finds particular interest among Israeli customers. On intercontinental connections, destinations across the whole Americas are traditionally popular. New destinations by the Lufthansa Group carrier Eurowings discover, like Las Vegas and Tampa can already be booked all at once in combination with a Lufthansa flight from Tel Aviv. In addition, countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, and Argentina are on top of the list this summer. More and more customers in Israel book their tickets online (around 40%) and are seeking more comfort and service as the premium classes such as Business Class and Premium Economy Class find more passengers this year.
