From bird flight to fryer grease: The future of flying
Dr. Sabine Klauke
© AIRBUS 2021 - photo by L. BORREL
Mobility shapes our entire lives – individually, socially and economically. As it connects people and markets across borders, it constitutes the basis of our globally networked world. Innovations in mobility therefore have the potential to significantly change our everyday lives.
The transformation of our world through innovative mobility has taken place at breakneck speed: Less than ten years elapsed between Bertha Benz’s first overland journey in her “horseless carriage” in 1888 and the start of mass production of automobiles. Aviation even underwent three revolutions within the space of only three decades: Once the human pioneering achievement of flight was mastered, developments followed from initially daring experimentation to the world’s safest means of transportation and finally to the shift from luxury to mass mobility.
We are now on the verge of a fourth revolution: climate-neutral flying. People and markets can only continue to benefit from this strong growth in aviation if we succeed in making it sustainable. In her lecture, Sabine Klauke will explain how aviation can overcome the technological challenges and outline the role played here by openness, diversity and visionary courage.
40th Bertha Benz Lecture
July 24, 2025
Foyer of the SRH University of Applied Sciences
Heidelberg
Speaker::
Dr. Sabine Klauke
Airbus, Chief Technology Officer and Member of the Executive Committee