Lufthansa CEO goes undercover as flight attendant, shares his experience: ‘I was astonished’

Image shared by Lufthansa Airlines CEO Jens Ritter on LinkedIn

Jens Ritter, CEO of Lufthansa Airlines, recently went ‘undercover’ as a flight attendant to gain new insights on what the job of the cabin crew entails. In a LinkedIn post shared last week, Ritter said he flew from Frankfurt, Germany, to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as an “additional crew member.”

“Sometimes, you need to change perspectives in order to gain new insights. This week, I accompanied our Lufthansa Airlines flight crew heading to Riyadh and Bahrain as ‘additional crew member’. What a ride!” the CEO of Lufthansa Airlines wrote in his LinkedIn post.

He said the experience was a challenging one and left him amazed at how much there is to organise before each flight. “I was amazed by how much there is to organize, especially, if something doesn’t go as planned – for example the meals offered on the menu cards were not exactly the meals loaded on board,” he revealed.

“We will have this fixed,” he promised in the comments section.

Ritter’s photographs show him serving customers and posing with flight crew. He served guests in business class during the flight to Riyadh and on the economy class during the return journey.

Having been a pilot, Ritter is not completely alien to the challenges that come with a night flight, but the experience of being a cabin crew member was completely new for him. “I used to fly as a pilot and so I thought I knew about the challenges a flight during the night entails. But to be present and attentive and charming – when the biological clock just tells you to sleep – was something entirely different,” he wrote.

Ritter ended his post by saying that taking decisions in office will be different going forward as he has now experienced what serving on board is like. “I was astonished how much I learned in these few hours. Deciding things in the office will be different after really feeling the decisions on board. Thank you to the amazing crew, the lovely guests and everyone involved for making this experience possible!” he concluded.