On April 25, 2024, the showdown of our Lufthansa Group Innovation Runway Challenge took place, where we asked all employees to submit new ideas to improve the travel experience of our passengers.

We received 58 ideas and selected the 4 most promising ones. These 4 teams worked on their idea in addition to their daily routine job for the last 7 weeks and validated their ideas together with our 15 innovation labs. These labs are part of our Open Lab Network, where they had access to technology, subject matter experts and innovation coaching. Together with the team, they defined the persona of their idea, concretized the current pain points in the customer journey, and defined their hypothesis. To enrich their idea, they validated, conducted customer surveys and performed A-B testingith data. At the end of the challenge, they presented their ideas to the jury of the Lufthansa Group Innovation Growth Fund in order to receive funding to build their  first prototype.

Thanks again to all participants, but a special round of applause goes to the teams that received funding:

• The “Thrifty Voyager” team of Amanda Sze Po Chiu from Lufthansa Group, Francesco Dorizzi & Mickael Woelcke from SWISS convinced the jury. Their idea foresees the empowerment  of customers to effortlessly plan their journeys according to their personal preferences (e.g. budget, location, purpose of the trip, hobbies).
• The “Fly & Relax” team of Jutta Reh & Magdalena Schuetz from LHIND & Sarah Olberding from Eurowings, who want to introduce a "Quiet Zone" & "Family Zone" to meet all of our passengers’ needs.

We will keep you posted on the progress of these ideas.