Reimagining Digital Leadership in Aviation

This blog post is part of 80+ case studies of progressive organizations we created for the ZeroDX awards 2025. These organizations embody the principles of RenDanHeYi in their work structures:

• Zero Distance to customer: Decision what to build is based on insights from the marketplace

• Autonomy: Small teams with full decision-making autonomy enable speed in execution

• Shared Rewards: Everyone in the micro-enterprise participates in its financial success.

As customer expectations rose and competitors modernized, Lufthansa Group faced growing pressure to rethink howdigital products were conceived and built. The need for change became urgent.

Digital Hangar was created in response to this imperative. From the start, it was designed as a semi-autonomous organization combining operational delivery with transformation ambition.

Leaders described it as “the digital pulse of aviation,” reflecting a commitment to work proactively and designcustomer offers shaped by real-time data and continuous feedback.

The organizational design itself marked a clear departure from familiar models. Approximately 1,200 people were assembled, including 400 recruited from external technology firms and consultancies. Vertical value streams were given clear responsibility for customer outcomes, while horizontal practices built shared methods and fostered professional communities.

Objectives and Key Results replaced traditional project plans. Teams were granted the freedom to decide how they would achieve agreed targets. Oscar Morgan, Head of Business Transformation, described this shift as a fundamental change in mindset: “Instead of being told exactly how to achieve a target, we agree on the outcome, like growing ancillary revenue, and leave it to the teams to figure out how.”

This expectation to act rather than wait soon became part of Digital Hangar’s culture. One example was the development of an AI-enabled tool to support customer service agents. A small group noticed that agents lacked a consolidated view of incoming queries. Without a formal request, they began prototyping a solution. “That capabilitydidn’t exist,” Morgan recalled. “It wasn’t requested by the business. It was just something a couple of people thought needed to be solved.”

Such initiatives were not isolated. Digital Hangar invested heavily in building systems that empowered people to take ownership. A custom People App was developed to track skills, plan rotations, and benchmark capabilities across teams. As Morgan explained, “We used to rely on Excel files scattered everywhere. Now we have a single source oftruth that helps us understand our ratio of developers to business analysts, or where we need to strengthen data science.”

Redefining career progression was another important aspect of this transformation. Advancement no longer depended exclusively on managing larger teams. Digital Hangar introduced options that allowed employees to grow either asleaders or as technical specialists. This flexibility helped attract talent and gave colleagues more room to shape their own development paths.

Still, adapting to this new environment required effort. For many who came from more hierarchical settings, learning to make decisions without waiting for approval was challenging. It took deliberate support and reinforcement to helpteams build confidence in their own judgment.

Internally, Digital Hangar soon became recognized for transparency and openness to learning. Teams were encouraged to share what worked and what failed, with the understanding that mistakes were part of progress.

Over time, these practices began to influence other parts of Lufthansa Group. As Larissa Armstrong observed, DigitalHangar became a reference point for divisions experimenting with new ways of working. “Digital Hangar shows in practice that you can build a structure where everyone knows how their work contributes to the end-to-end customer experience,” she said.

This influence extended to the newly established Agile Transformation Office, which was tasked with supporting departments in adopting agile approaches. Digital Hangar’s experience, including its emphasis on short work cycles and direct accountability, provided concrete examples to draw upon.

Despite these successes, balancing autonomy with effective governance remained an ongoing effort. Morgan described the tension candidly: “If you’re not careful, you can end up with under-governance. We have fewer formal layers, but that requires constant refinement.”

The impact of Digital Hangar was widely acknowledged. Lufthansa Group’s CEO, Carsten Spohr, called it “the bestinvestment we made last year,” citing both its business relevance and cultural significance. “In a company like Lufthansa, you often hear, ‘That’s good for Silicon Valley, but it will never work here,’” Morgan reflected. “What we have done is create a place where you can’t use that excuse anymore.”

This is not only a story of digital delivery. It is a story of replacing instructions with purpose, silos with networks, and fear with curiosity.

While Digital Hangar does not formally adopt the RenDanHeYi framework, it demonstrates several comparable practices. Teams operate with end-to-end responsibility for customer outcomes, and transparent data systems and Objectives and Key Results provide clarity on what success looks like. Employees are encouraged to identify improvements proactively, without waiting for hierarchy. Customer proximity is evident in the way teams developsolutions directly in response to customer needs, as seen in the AI-enabled support tool. The emphasis on transparency, shared learning, and cross-functional collaboration reflects Zero Distance principles and shows that even in a large, regulated organization, these ideas can be adapted into daily practice.