SNAPSHOT
Name: Gabor Horvath.
Company: Lufthansa
Title: General manager for Bulgarian and Albania
And this entails: Finding the right marketing balance and channels, searching out distribution channels, finding the best revenue-cost ratio, finding the best sales set-up, finding the best service providers, recruiting the team, motivating the team, and doing this all for two countires. In the main Bulgaria office, located in Sofia, Horvath manages a team of eight.
Lufthansa expects the number of the companys passengers in Bulgaria to exceed 300 000 for 2007. The most frequent European destinations from Bulgaria are Munich, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Lisbon and Brussels as well as the intercontinental transfer flights to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, New York, Miami, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Hong-Kong, Chicago and Beijing.
And on the other side: Horvath enjoys discovering new cultures, meeting new people and spending time with his family.
No one can really say if Superman dreamt of flying as a lad, or if he just benefitted from its being there to further his career. For Gabor Horvath, the answer is clear. As long as there is flight, there is the option of a profession possessing international dimensions. Thus, we find him here, now, in Sofia, a bit down the line of his career path as the new general manager of Lufthansa Bulgaria and Albania. In other words, you decide to fly from Beirut to Sofia (because Lufthansa does fly this line, seven times weekly), it is Horvath who is ultimately responsible for the marketing, sales, flight schedule, in-flight crew, catering, ground crew, technical cohesion and whatever else goes into making a flight successful.
He came to Bulgaria in August 2007 from Budapest, Hungary, his home town, which is also where he had been in cargo sales and handling, the pricing and sales support manager for Central and Eastern Europe/Passenger sector, Lufthansa Hungary general manager, in the auditing department of Lufthansa Cargo and more. His life at Lufthansa started a number of years ago, when, in 1996, he applied for a job at the aviation group, and a company psychologist recommended that he attend Lufthansas training school. So after earning degrees at the Hungarian College for Foreign Trade and the Export Academy of Baden-Wurttemberg, he again entered school, this time for two years in the specific field of his future via the International Airline Professional Programme at Deutsche Lufthansa AG, where he learnt near everything about the enterprise and its divisions, and what it takes to make it successful.
But why specifically Lufthansa? Horvath told The Sofia Echo that he finds it to be a really strong brand, providing assured international opportunities, which is one of the factors that first drew him to it. Its a global company, international, with more than 100 000 employees from more than 130 countries, he said. The airline industry is a growing industry, so that was something attractive; its solid, financially stable and the business is very interesting, which made it quite an interesting employer. The numerous options within the company also increased its appeal.
This strength of brand is demonstrated in Lufthansas top rankings in nearly every category involved in the airline industry Lufthansa Cargo is the number two international cargo airline, having our own freight team; were a full international cargo airline, having our own cargo planes; then there is Lufthansa Technik, which is the largest worldwide airline maintenance company; then there is Lufthansa LSG Sky Chefs, which is the Lufthansa catering company, which is also the biggest in the world with more than a 30 per cent market share. There is Lufthansa Systems, for airline IT solutions, for not only Lufthansa but also for our competitors, which is the number also also in the field, he said.
Actually its funny, because Lufthansa Technik is number one, LSG catering is number one, Lufthansa Systems is number one, so we at Lufthansa Passenger are only at number two. KLM and Air France are number one in this sector, giving him a good stimulation to improve his division. It is a good sign when country managers remain upbeat and congenial when talking about the competition and it is not true that without competition, one can become complacent?
In any case, as part of SkyTeam Alliance, based on the passenger figures and revenue figures, Lufthansa figures into the number one alliance.
Horvath, in his role here in Bulgaria, is also in charge of the Albanian market. While it might seem like a strange configuration geographically, there is logic when it comes to the organisational side. Its an internal issue, he said. So far, it had been Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia, because there are also links between Bulgaria and Macedonia. In the region, the Budapest director is in responsible for 14 countries, with the big (hubs) like Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic together with Slovakia, Romania with Moldova, and there is Croatia together with Slovenia and Bosnia. Poland is very big, and very old; the others are kind of the same size. Kosovo is so far part of Serbia. ... The smaller ones are Serbia and Bulgaria, but the increase in Bulgaria is much bigger, and since we started to fly to Albania in May, there is already an increase in business flights.
Starting in 2008, there will be additional flights to Bulgaria, including those under the Swiss International Air Lines flag, which Lufthansa is going to take over, meaning that they are responsible for Swiss operations. So if we also added Macedonia, it would be too many new things, Horvath said. It would not facilitate internal operations.
The Bulgarian market is larger than the Serbian both in an increase in passenger flights and in an increase in passenger numbers, he said. The current market and economy are in a much stronger shape than Serbia. For Serbia, I would think that this growth will come in three or four years. He gave Bulgaria as an example, saying that if one compares the GDPs, Bulgarias is bigger, and though the countrys joining the European Union is not necessarily changing that much for the people here, at the first steps, because they know how Bulgaria is, we know that Western European people sometimes think Oh, Eastern European people, they cant do anything, and then all of a sudden they see them as new EU members, and they say Ok, lets give it a try. All of these types of systems that come from being in the EU give an option for the growth that is happening here, he said.
As he comes from what, too, was a communist country, it seemed that Horvath might have some interesting words to share on development of national investments. He said that the re-development of Hungary started earlier than Bulgaria because of marketing: It was like Oh, they are much more modern European than Bulgaria. But from what I can see now, Bulgaria and Romania, the later starters, are experiencing the growth in a much faster period of time. They have a lower level from which they are growing, but the growth itself is much more rapid than the other countries.
Comparing Hungarys EU accession with Bulgarias, he said that it took his country 14 years from approach to entrance, while for Bulgaria, it took only seven. And it is interesting, because also for the team at Lufthansa, the growth has been much faster in the newly acceded and soon-to-accede countries.
Besides which, if comparing labour costs, Bulgaria is in the most advantageous position in Europe, he said, because if you compare the average salaries, the only trend is up. And if you increase the salaries, you will still be more efficient than elsewhere.
One significant difference, though, is the size of investments. Here in Bulgaria, most foreign companies set up branches that would equate to small or medium-sized enterprises. There is nothing like in Hungary, Horvath said, where Bosch, in its four sectors, puts bread on the table for more than 20 000 people.
But, with the flat taxation as of 2008, he sees it as being even more desirable. Granted, going along with an easy tax rate, it is also necessary to have qualified people, a stable financial system and a lack of legal problems.
And Horvath is positive about investment stability, explaining that Lufthansa Technik is building up a plant on on the outskirts of Sofia that will employ more than 300 persons. That makes close to 400 persons from Lufthansa in the country, making us one of the largest employers on the market. We both had a laugh at that small figure being such a high number.
Because of the efficiency with which Lufthansa recruits and trains its staff, Horvath does not really see much difference in guiding the office here in Sofia as opposed to the one in Budapest, or during his stints in the United States or Germany or Sweden.
What he does recognise though, as the new boy on the block, that it is best to not enter a new position with sweeping changes. I didnt come and change everything. My first two months here were spent observing, then I started to implement, with analysis, discussion, he said. He cites communication in the office, among colleagues, between boss and sub-ordinate, and particularly about job description. He said that a person must know what is expected of him expected of him, but not a frozen on an A4 sheet of paper. Horvath aims to adapt the job to the person, and also the person to the job through rational dialogue. And he likes his team in Sofia, calling them qualified, motivated and young, so its very much fun working here. What challenges him the most at least according to what he mentioned is that he does not yet speak Bulgarian, so he does not understand everything that his staff is saying. But he is learning the language, which will be added to his Russian and fluent German, along with English, meaning that at the end of his about five-year term in Bulgaria, he should be fluent.
And though he thoroughly relishes what he does, saying that he could do it for 30 hours a day, Horvath recognises the importance of spending time with his family, of being present and active in the lives of his two children (four and eight years old) and his wife. Whereas in Budapest, his average day at the office was 14 hours, he said that prioritisation was one of the agreements that he and his wife made before moving to Bulgaria to spend more time with the family. This includes, when possible, shorter days at the office, and no-second-thoughts dedication to keeping weekends free.
The kids themselves have adapted well to the move, as Horvath and his wife showed due respect in explaining in understandable terms that they are moving to a different country and everybody will be speaking a different language and it will be challenging, but on the other side it will be very nice, etc, he said.
While moving to a new country with family is one thing, travelling on low-cost airlines is another.
Having flown such himself, Horvath said that no-frills air carriers are great for a certain audience like backpackers who do not really care if they arrive for a three-month holiday one day later. But when travelling with children, traditional carriers are the way to go to avoid 1am flights, four-hour delays or three-day cancellations. He also told the story of, when working in Budapest, a job candidate had planned to fly to the Budapest interview using a low-cost carrier. It so happened that the flight was cancelled, and the candidate missed out on the interview. Given the perhaps 30 euro total cost difference, it was an expensive airline ticket at the end because youre missing a job opportunity, he said. Its really based on the expectation of the customer. I feel that we are present in many more segments for our customers than the no-frills carriers.
Like Lufthansa is present for its customers, Horvath is present and open-doored for his staff, present and active in his family life, and present and dynamic in his career.
