Karl Eduard Guenther Gasthuber passed away peacefully at his home in Kelsterbach near Frankfurt, on December 18, 2025, following a brief battle with cancer. From June 2008 to August 2025, he shaped the fate of the non-profit air freight consolidator, IGLU Air Cargo, founded in 2000 by the recently passed Dieter Haltmayer, founder and long-time head of Quick Cargo Service GmbH.
Gasthuber, who came from the Japanese agent, Hankyu Hanshin Express, “knocked on our doors and applied for the position of Managing Director of IGLU Air Cargo,” recalls Dieter Haltmayer, describing the initial contact between the two managers in his last interview with a media representative. That was 17 years ago. On August 27, 2025, Haltmayer gave a speech in honor of Gasthuber, due to the manager’s retirement, simultaneously welcoming Nouri Neller as Gasthuber’s successor and new helmsman of IGLU Air Cargo. “We were very satisfied with his work. When I said goodbye to him, Günter had tears of emotion in his eyes,” recalls a very touched Dieter Haltmayer, looking back on the last meeting of the two cargo veterans. Until his last days, Gasthuber kept his progressive cancer a secret from friends and former business partners: he was reserved, did not impose himself on others, and kept his private life largely to himself.
Just a few days before his death, Bernhard Stock, long-standing chairman of the IGLU advisory board and former air freight executive of IGLU member EMO Trans, suggested a meeting to dine together. However, it never took place.
Of the 24 freight forwarding agents belonging to consolidator IGLU, Thomas Waschke from JL Logistic GmbH, was one of Günther Gasthuber’s closest confidants. “He was very fair in his personal dealings and managed IGLU for the shareholders involved in a very professional, calm, competent, and transparent manner. And he was a very pleasant, affable person with a clear business opinion,” Waschke recalls. These are important qualities in a function that often requires diplomatic skills in the day-to-day business. This applies above all to companies that work closely together under the IGLU umbrella by pooling cargo tonnage on certain routes to benefit from favorable rates but compete in other markets.
He succeeded in establishing close business relationships with the cargo units of leading carriers such as Qatar Airways, Lufthansa, Emirates, Turkish Airlines and others, to secure transport capacity for IGLU consignments on key trade lanes to achieve price advantages.
Günther Gasthuber, a lover of classical music, will be buried in Taipei, in a shared grave next to his wife Margo Yu-Chin Gasthuber Chao, a native of Taiwan. She passed away in the spring of 2025. The couple had no children.
A memorial event will be held in his honor, in Rüsselsheim near Frankfurt. The commemorative speech will be given by a member of the IGLU group.
Günther, RIP. Heiner
