Somehow the story that is now causing a stir in the German aviation industry could have been pieced together a few weeks ago. Grazia Vittadini had just landed in Frankfurt and, as she rolled past, took a snapshot out of the plane window showing a tank of sustainable aviation fuel. “Eat more fries,” she wrote in her post on X – leftover cooking oil is also used for fuel.
Vittadini, Frankfurt, sustainability – the figurative connection makes sense because Lufthansa has just appointed the 54-year-old aviation engineer as a new board member for technology. The decision can certainly be seen as a loud wake-up call for the sometimes somewhat sleepy traditional company. Vittadini already has a great career as an engineer. She is one of the few women who have fought their way to the top in the male-dominated industry and who also clearly enjoy the big public stage. CEO Carsten Spohr will have to share with her the public attention that has so far been almost exclusive to him in German aviation. It remains to be seen whether he will actually like it as much as he is currently saying internally.
Vittadini, a fan of motorcycles and airplanes since childhood, worked for Airbus for 20 years, including in Bremen and Hamburg, where she made a career as an engineer. In 2018, the then CEO Tom Enders (who now sits on the Lufthansa supervisory board and is expected to take over as chairman soon) chose her as the new head of technology.
It should do nothing less than reinvent the future of aviation, find ways and means by which Airbus could build aircraft that do significantly less damage to the environment and that serve the major goal of flying climate-neutrally from 2050 onwards. The manager with a German and Italian passport threw herself into it with great energy, presenting the plans for a new hydrogen aircraft and also how synthetic fuel could help transform flying – see fries.
A career with setbacks
2021 ended abruptly. Enders’ successor Guillaume Faury reorganized his board and suddenly there was no room for Vittadini. At the time, insiders believed that the ambitious head of technology had been a bit too much of a focus for him and that some internal colleagues were simply annoyed by her demanding nature.
For Vittadini, leaving Airbus seemed to be the premature end of a glittering career, but only a short time later she emerged as chief technology officer at the British aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce. There, too, it was about the future of aviation and more sustainable flying, and there too it was over again after a short time. The financially troubled company cut thousands of jobs in 2023. It was never entirely clear why Vittadini actually left or had to leave, but apparently there was a dispute over cuts in the research budget that she did not want to accept.
And now Lufthansa. Four out of six board members will be replaced in the next few months, partly for reasons of age, and the head of finance has a new job. But the signal is clear: there needs to be more momentum in the place, it needs fresh influence from outside and a few new ideas. In the future, Vittadini will buy aircraft that her former employer builds, and she will certainly demand more speed in innovation from Airbus and Boeing. At the airline, she is responsible for the issue of sustainability; fleet renewal has so far taken place far too slowly, also because Lufthansa has no money for higher investments.