Hartwig Hagena

Hartwig Hagena began his career in aviation in 1987 by studying Aerospace Technology at the German Armed Forces University in Munich. He then worked at the Federal Ministry of Defense’s flight readiness department as head of quality control and fleet manager of the CL-601 business jets.

After his time in the Air Force, he worked for the management consultancy Hagena & Partner co-authoring studies on topics as diverse as missile defense and the future of military aviation.

Working in the technology departments for various airlines, he held management positions in the areas of logistics, maintenance, planning and customer service, most recently as Accountable Manager Technical Department of SunExpress Deutschland.

In 2010, he completed an MBA alongside his job, with a special focus on decision theory. His master’s thesis focused on pricing strategies.

In 2021, he joined DLR’s Project Funding Organisation as a scientific associate, responsible for flight control, ATC and general aviation processes with a special focus on climate impact and contrail mitigation.

In 2024, he moved to the Position of Manager International relations, working on the Horizon Europe funded Project AREANA as head of the “Synergy” work-package. In a consortium covering 15 partners from 14 nations he works on strengthening the international cooperation between funding programmes on the European, national and regional level.