IWD 2026: APEX/FTE Celebrate Female Leaders Advancing Passenger Experience Innovation
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To celebrate International Women’s Day, APEX is publishing interviews with female leaders at its member companies who are pushing the envelope when it comes to passenger experience. The conversations will form a week-long series, with one being shared each day. The fourth discussion is with AirFi CEO Laura Rösges. These interviews were initially featured on the Future Travel Experience website.
APEX: Can you share a brief overview of your career journey – and what drew you towards innovation leadership within aviation?
“Many opportunities to have a leadership position emerge during people’s thirties and forties, a period where flexibility and supportive work structures are so immensely important to keep female talent.”
Rösges: My career actually started in consumer electronics retail, where travel quickly became one of the more exciting parts of my job. I loved everything about it; the energy of airports, the aircraft, the crews, the constant feeling of being on the move. For someone in their early twenties, it was very thrilling.
Aviation was also personal for me. My family is German and Italian, so flying was how we stayed connected. Certain airlines became “the brand that brings a parent home.” That emotional side of aviation stayed with me.
After completing my Master’s in International Business and Disruptive Innovation, I wanted to work in an industry I loved but that was also ready for transformation. Aviation is fascinating, yet many of its systems and concepts still originate from the mid-20th century. That creates enormous potential for innovation.
I joined the Lufthansa Group after my master’s as Sales & Commercial Steering Manager, and I’ve been hooked on aviation innovation ever since. I then later moved into Strategy and Business Development at Lufthansa Service Group (LSG), then became Director Onboard Retail Sales at Lufthansa’s daughter Retail inMotion (RiM). I became Chief Commercial Officer at RiM some years later and moved to AirFi as CEO on April 1, 2025.
APEX: As we approach International Women’s Day, how would you assess the progress the aviation industry has made towards gender equality – particularly in leadership and innovation roles? Where is meaningful progress being made – and where does the industry still need to accelerate change?
Rösges: Aviation has made real progress in gender equality, which is fabulous, but we’re not where we should be in terms of leadership roles. I’m lucky and have worked with many inspiring women over the last few years, but there are still moments at conferences, panels or negotiations where creative, diverse ideas are presented by expert women, yet the final leadership role or decision often still sits with a male peer.
Where we’ve made strong progress is in access to our field. More women are entering aviation than ever before. The challenge now is making sure they can grow into the leadership roles that they are so capable of. Many of those opportunities that allow you to have a leadership position in your later career emerge during people’s thirties and forties, a period where flexibility and supportive work structures would be so immensely important to keep female talent. This is where we really need to get better.
We are starting to see encouraging change though. Women now lead several major airlines on most of the continents, including Marjan Rintel at KLM, Joanna Geraghty at JetBlue, and Mitsuko Tottori at Japan Airlines. But, frankly speaking, as long as the list of women leading airlines or their innovation teams still feels like a “top ten” than a long list, the industry clearly still has work to do.
“Innovation doesn’t happen by accident. You have to very intentionally and deliberately create space and time for it.”
APEX: From your experience, what unique challenges and opportunities have you encountered as a woman leading innovation in aviation – and how has diversity of perspective influenced innovation outcomes?
Rösges: I personally believe innovation thrives on diversity of thought and that’s where different perspectives, especially those of women (we make up half of the world, after all!) can make a real difference.
One opportunity I’ve experienced is the strength of collaborative networks. Many women in aviation actively support each other, testing ideas, sharing insights and challenging assumptions. Because we know that innovation is not a competition, we all benefit, even if we’re not the inventor. Innovation benefits enormously from that openness. At the same time, challenges still exist. In some negotiations or cultural contexts, there can still be an expectation that the final decision should come from a male counterpart. Occasionally you notice hesitation when a woman leads the discussion or sets the direction.
But perspectives are evolving quickly. In some places we’re already running; in others we’re still choosing the shoes we’ll walk in and that’s OK, as long as we’re making steps forward. The important part is that diverse viewpoints consistently lead to better innovation outcomes, and that also means that not only the teams, but the ones leading the teams need to show balanced leadership. Because the more perspectives you bring to the table, the better the solutions become. See, if our passengers are well balanced and gain more and more equality in travel, our companies serving aviation should reflect that. If we don’t bring in an equal chance for genders in our field, our products will simply not benefit long-term.
APEX: How do you foster a culture of innovation within your organization, particularly in a highly regulated and operationally complex industry like aviation?
Rösges: Aviation is highly regulated and operationally complex, that’s true. It means innovation doesn’t happen by accident. You have to very intentionally and deliberately create space and time for it.
One principle I strongly believe in is keeping innovation fun, even in a restricted environment. Aviation and regulation often go hand in hand, but creativity still needs room to play. We currently use formats like “Think Tank Tuesdays,” challenge panels, or small internal awards for the most creative contribution to a product road-map. When you mix teams from different disciplines and give them permission to explore ideas, innovation tends to appear naturally. From there, the next iteration is more work, but can turn playful, fun ideas into commercially viable solutions. That’s exactly how our Wingman AI Travel Agent concept was born.
“Creativity needs room to play. We currently use formats like “Think Tank Tuesdays,” challenge panels, or small internal awards for the most creative contribution to a product road-map.“
APEX: What innovation initiatives are you currently leading that are reshaping the passenger journey – whether through digital transformation, operational efficiency, or new technologies and experience concepts?
Rösges: Our current innovation focus targets passenger convenience and digital transformation for crew and operators by making onboard concepts smarter and passenger experiences more personalized. We’re quite proud about two of our latest initiatives. First, AirFi Wingman, our AI travel companion, brings contextual digital services to the IFE experience. It helps passengers navigate their journey with real-time guidance and personalized recommendations and also creates new ways to engage and monetize services.
Secondly, we’ve managed to simplify aviation retail with mobile and NFC payments that work even offline. Self-checkouts and contactless payments let airlines move from heavy onboard infrastructure to lightweight, flexible systems that are easier to deploy, scale and maintain, which we believe is a game-changer, especially for carriers with tighter budgets and crews that don’t want an extra payment device.
APEX: How are technologies such as AI, robotics, automation, and the Internet of Things influencing your innovation roadmap – and how do you prioritize investment in emerging technologies?
Rösges: Artificial intelligence has a lot of potential to foster more and more transformative technologies in one’s innovation road-map. For us, automation has become a standard we rely on, but AI is still something as an industry we haven’t fully tapped into beyond suggestive selling, load planning and personalized travel experiences.
At AirFi, we have started building it into our products and are still learning as we go. We have embedded it into our new products and are ‘retrofitting’ it into our core line of business to improve the features and UX. AI can make your product more conversational, more relevant and more impactful, especially when prompted correctly.
For airlines, technologies like AI, automation and connected systems can fundamentally change how services are delivered. The real challenge is not just adopting new technologies but prioritizing the ones that genuinely improve the passenger experience while remaining operationally practical. In aviation, innovation always needs to balance creativity with realism, especially if your AI or automation consumes a lot of hardware capacity, which could be an issue in the IFEC space where there are limitations. But this just invites us to be even more creative.
“Automation has become a standard we rely on, but AI is still something as an industry we haven’t fully tapped into.“
APEX: What advice would you give to the next generation of women aspiring to leadership roles in aviation and technology?
Rösges: Innovation can come from anywhere; you don’t need to be an aviation expert to bring valuable ideas into this industry. Sometimes the best innovations come from bringing ideas outside aviation. If you see something that works elsewhere, bring it in and own it.
Most importantly though, allow yourself to take up space. Ask the question. Share the idea. Don’t undersell your perspective.
You also don’t need to imitate your male peers to lead. True leadership comes from authenticity and you can lead as a collaborative and empathetic person, too.
To view the rest of the interviews in this week-long series, click here.