I studied Aviation Management at the International University of Applied Science in Bad Honnef. I completed my 6-month internship abroad with Lufthansa in New York, in the office of the Vice President of The Americas. The headquarters there is responsible for all Lufthansa Passage activities in North and South America. I had a great variety of tasks there: I assisted the main office in preparing various events while also coordinating and assisting the Lufthansa Stations at the airports in USA and Canada through their central EA/S (Operations & Airport Services, The Americas) department.

My main project dealt with the problems concerning delayed of damaged baggage: together with my supervisor and the local Customer Relations department, I developed a brochure that gives those passengers affected clear information with the goal of reducing the amount of calls to the Call Center and thereby reducing costs. Furthermore, with the assistance of my supervisor I was responsible for the preparation, content and program of an internship workshop in New York to which all the Lufthansa Passage interns within North America were invited.

The absolute highlight of my internship was the Americas Meeting in Washington, D.C., which was attended by a delegation from Frankfurt which included Dr. Weber, Mr. Mayrhuber, and Mr. Antinori, along with the entire management team of Lufthansa the Americas. To my surprise Mr. Glenn Tilton, CEO of United Airlines, and Dave Siegel, CEO of US Airways, also put in an appearance. My tasks consisted of creating a welcome package, assisting the organizational team, and preparing a presentation board with the core statement results of the meeting.

I was also active in various other areas such as recruiting interns for the Sales office, coordinating visa and contract matters or taking care of the “EA Exchange Newsletter”.  At the beginning of my internship I also put together a briefing for the farewell tour of the former chairman of the executive board Dr. Weber, which showed the development of the American air transportation market and which contained, aside from competitive market analysis, a short profile of all Lufthansa locations within the North American market.

Based on the practice-oriented lectures in airline management, airport management, service provider management and other relevant subjects taught at the UAP, I was ideally prepared for my internship. In the aviation sector in particular the combination of theory and practice is indispensable. An internship enables you to get to know your future field of business and its exciting range of activities at an early stage. I was able to gain valuable experience in New York and gather insights into the fascinating work Lufthansa also does abroad.