What do a volcanic eruption, a pandemic and a terrorist attack have in common? That’s right: they happen very rarely. And when they do, it’s usually somewhere else. So why should these and other disaster scenarios cause anxiety, panic, or even precautionary measures?
Given the low probability of falling victim to a catastrophic event, as Lufthansa Airline CIO Jochen Göttelmann writes, it is difficult to justify spending on appropriate responses to such unlikely scenarios -especially in tough economic times.
But it is also true that something can always happen! Any disaster scenario, no matter how unlikely, can occur not just anywhere, but right here, right now – with devastating financial, operational or political consequences.
Jochen Göttelmann experienced what this can mean on his very first day as CIO at Lufthansa Airline. In February 2023, an excavator driver severed several fiber optic cables during construction work in Frankfurt. The next day, Lufthansa’s IT collapsed. Computer systems failed, causing delays and disruptions for thousands of passengers at the airport. According to the airport operator Fraport, 242 take-offs and landings out of a total of around 1,000 take-offs and landings with 114,000 passengers had to be canceled during the course of the day, and the airspace over central Germany was temporarily closed.
Lufthansa itself took responsibility for the computer failure at the time. After backup lines had initially kept the systems running, the problems in the IT infrastructure then “escalated”.
It was not only because of this incident that Jochen Göttelmann implemented a resilience strategy for Lufthansa’s IT, which is essentially based on continuity management processes that integrate IT and business equally, “because neither can do it without the other,” as Jochen explained.
At the heart of his resilient IT is the cloud, to which Lufthansa has been gradually migrating its IT since 2018. The consequences of the excavator accident alone would probably have been easily mitigated in the cloud. To ensure additional continuity in the cloud, Lufthansa also relies on geo-redundancy and regular backup and recovery tests.
In addition, there is the group-wide information security program SHIELD with investments “in the high double-digit millions” and around 30 sub-projects. “As a result, we have significantly improved the level of cybersecurity,” says Jochen Göttelmann.
