Heike Thoennessen at Lufthansa Cargo AG in Barcelona, Spain
How have I found the place for the internship?
I did my practical semester already at Lufthansa Cargo AG in Frankfurt (Sales Steering Europe/Africa). Due to this internship I had a lot of contacts to a lot of employees in the Europe/Africa area. I heard a lot of interesting things about the handling manager for the Spain area. He should improve the interns knowledge within a very short time. So I asked for an internship in his area. There was still a free place for an internship in Barcelona and I got the place due to my good performance in Frankfurt.
How have I heard about the Leonardo-Programme?
A professor of mine told us about this Leonardo Programme during his lessons. When I explained him that I would like to do an internship in Barcelona he gave me the link for the Leonardo homepage and I wrote my application.
Responsibility at the office
Explanation of my project Lufthansa Cargo developed a new cost saving programme which is called "Best In Handling". It is a kind of barrier analyses for handling processes. I had to find out as much as I could about the different handling processes (for example in the warehouse). I defined the start and stop points of each process and visualized the whole process in excel. The visualization was done like a net plan where I also showed all the existing barrier in each process. I had to think about barrier removal opportunities. Furthermore I had to build up a "Cross Functional Team" (CFT). The CFT develops a "Barrier Removal Team (BRT)" for each special barrier and has the overview about all the BRT's. My task was to define the targets for the CFT and to find some analysis tools for the BRT's. Moreover I prepared a pocket guide for the Best In Handling programme.
Could I use my actual knowledge?
Have I had enough to do? I could use my knowledge of my first internship at Lufthansa Cargo as well my knowledge from the study. It was very easy to understand my tasks because I already knew the Lufthansa Cargo's philosophy and the tasks of the different functions and departments. Due to my logistic studies I could understand the processes for the visualization very fast. The project was very interesting because I learned a lot about the warehouse processes as well how to remove the barriers. I had always a lot to do and the working tasks were always very different and interesting.
Finding a room
- How have I found my room?
Lufthansa Cargo gave me the address of a homepage where I inserted my profile (www.habitatgejove.com). Since the moment I pressed the "send" button I became a lot of offers. I got in contact with different people with different offers.
- Which kind of room have I chosen?
Was it OK? I decided for a furnished room. It was very small but the whole flat was very big and nice. My flat members were very nice too. We had a lot of contact. We were living with 4 people in the flat (120 qm²).
Social environment and integration
- Contact to colleagues in the office
I had a very good contact to my colleagues. My PC was in the sales office. So I had also a very closed contact to the sales people and not only to the handling. All my colleagues gave me a very good support.
- Contacts with colleagues outside the office
I had also a very closed private contact to some colleagues. They had nearly the same age like me and the same interests. So we met sometimes to have a dinner together or we were going in an bar or disco.
- The social environment in the office
We had a really good contact among each other. I had also a lot of contact to the other departments in our office. They explained me their work and gave me a lot support.
- My impression of Barcelona
Barcelona became directly to one of my favourite cities. I like the city and the people very much. I was never bored because there are so many things to see and to expire. For example the Sagrada Famillia, Park Güell and houses of Gaudi, the Cathedral, Barri Gotico, the Olympic city, the port Olympic, a lot of very nice parks, museums etc. The people are also very friendly and open minded.
The internship
My expectations before the start of the internship I had high expectations due to my first internship in Frankfurt. In Barcelona I got the same responsibility and confidence. Sometimes I had to flight to Madrid for different meetings. I was allowed to make my own decisions for questions of my project. My chef gave me a lot of free room to develop my own ideas.
At first I could improve my business English because a lot of my colleagues communicated in English among each other and with me. The other interns and my landlord in the flat were from England and I could learn a lot from them. But I could improve my Spanish knowledge as well. I did an intensive Spanish course. At the end of my internship I was able to communicate in Spanish on a very basic level. My teacher in Barcelona gave me a lot of knowledge so that I can improve it on my own now.
Now I made my working experiences abroad and I can imagine to live there. The area manager of Spain made me the offer to work for him in Spain after I finished my studies. The internship gave my a lot of knowledge which I can use during my studies now. I already worked 8 month for Lufthansa Cargo in Frankfurt. Due to that I would say that 3 months are enough for this internship because I already knew a lot of the working stuff. But for new interns I would prefer a longer internship. The students will also have more time to look for a good language school and are able to do an Spanish course about 1 month or longer.
Internships at Lufthansa Cargo are always possible. The students have to write their application either to the central internship department in Frankfurt or directly to the contact persons in the special country (for Barcelona take the address above)
