Ulrich Desel studied economics and civil engineering at the RWTH Aachen (Diploma in Civil Engineering in 1982, in Economics in 1985 and Dr.-Ing. in 1988). He started his career in 1982 as project manager with the Airport Research Centre in Aachen. In 1988, Dr. Desel moved to the Deutsche Lufthansa AG as a route manager and since 1995 has worked for the Lufthansa subsidiary GlobeGround in the field of acquisition and evaluation of ground handling companies for the region of the U.K. and Scandinavia. Under the joint venture with Servisair he became Executive Vice President for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. After visiting lectureships at the RWTH Aachen and at the Donau University of Krems in Austria in 2003 he became professor for aviation management at the International University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef · Bonn.