Felix Kreutel Appointed as New Fraport Head of Cargo

One who knows his way around cargo
Felix Kreutel will take up the cargo position as of 1. October this year. The official title of the 43 year-old will be Head of Fraport AG’s Cargo Development & Management Department. Felix is no stranger to the cargo scene at Frankfurt Airport. He joined Fraport in 2000 in a group trainee program and from 2001-2007 he worked in Fraport’s Retail Department before moving into the airport’s Real Estate Unit which also deals with the cargo facilities planning at the airport.  Mr Kreutel has held the position of Vice President for Fraport’s Cargo & Logistics Department since 2015. He also holds an Executive MBA from the University of Nottingham, UK.

Commenting on his new position, Mr Kreutel stated that: “The air cargo industry is currently undergoing enormous changes. The rise of new technologies requires enhanced cooperation among all cargo partners to ensure our competitiveness on the global market.“

Anke Giessen, Fraport board member and Director of Operations, commented: “Felix Kreutel is a very experienced, professional and competent Fraport executive, who is familiar with the market and our customers.“

The current trend is good for cargo, but Felix Kreutel has quite some outstanding issues to surmount within the cargo community itself. His past experience will surely be of help to him there. The Frankfurt cargo volumes slipped considerably during the past few years compared to their neighbours in Amsterdam and Paris. One of Kreutel and his team’s main tasks will be to take measures to stop or at least reduce the transition of shipments from production centres in Germany to airports in the Netherlands, Luxembourg or France and offer shippers and forwarders attractive solutions to fly their goods from Rhine-Main instead.

Fraport reports a good first half-year
It seems that Mr Kreutel takes up his new position at the right time as cargo volumes at Frankfurt showed a healthy increase during the first six-months of this year. The airport recorded an almost 1.1 million tonnes handled during the first half year. This represents an increase of 4.8%, which is the highest first half-year increase during the past six years.

Fraport Group revenues from January to June 2017 jumped by 10.7% to almost 1.4 billion euros. This is mainly attributed to strong passenger growth and increased revenues generated from property sales and retail revenues. Fraport Group EBITDA went up by 11% to 420 million euros and actual EBIT by 12.2% to 240.7 million euros.

John Mc Donagh  / Heiner Siegmund