Weber steps down, led LH through 'valley of tears' since 9/11 Dateline: Thursday June 19, 2003 Lufthansa Group Chairman and CEO Juergen Weber said Wednesday he believes the worst of the global airline crisis is over and that financially struggling LH will emerge by year end from the aftermath of 9/11, SARS and global economic malaise stronger than its competitors. Addressing his final AGM as CEO, Weber, 61, said Lufthansa already has exceeded the eur1 billion ($1.17 billion) cash-flow improvement target originally set for 2004. "If the trend of the last few weeks persists," he told shareholders, "I think that we will again be in a better position than most of our competitors at the end of this year. We have come out of the valley of tears." Weber, who astutely navigated LH from near collapse to profitability during nearly 12 years at the helm, retired yesterday. A leading initiator of the Star Alliance, he transformed Lufthansa into the world's largest aviation group and in 2002 its most profitable as well. Under his leadership, the carrier twice was selected to receive ATW's Airline of the Year award. He handed over the reins at the AGM to longtime colleague and friend Wolfgang Mayrhuber, 56, who takes the helm amid a new period of financial turbulence. Just a day before, Moody's dropped LH's senior unsecured debt rating one notch on a forecast of weaker short/medium-term cash-flow generation. The group forecasts a full-year loss after being eur356 million in the red in the 2003 first quarter on the heels of record earnings of eur717 million last year. Mayrhuber, a lanky, personable Austrian who was deputy executive board chairman and CEO of Lufthansa Passenger Airline, was named Weber's successor a year ago. Industry observers anticipate a smooth transition with few changes in how the company is managed, although there are clear differences in personality: Mayrhuber is more laidback compared with Weber's intense, totally dedicated, aggressive style in defending LH interests. Weber becomes chairman of the supervisory board. Taking stock of his time as chairman, Weber said it was thanks to combined efforts of all employees and management that LH recovered from 9/11 able to post strong results in 2002. "Together they were vigilant, adaptable and a top team, for whom fast reaction had become second nature," he said. "Crisis management at LH does not automatically mean job cuts and redundancies, which are often proclaimed elsewhere to be the panacea for any crisis. That kind of approach does not mesh with our corporate culture."--Leonard Hill *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.carib-link.net/naparima/naps.html TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************