Working Week meets Florian Hafner, president and chief executive of aviation consultancy Hafner Engineering, working for government and industry clients on airport, airspace, airline and air traffic management projects
What does your job entail?
I work as a consultant. As part of my job, I provide consulting services in the areas of airport/airspace operations and planning; simulation and modelling; air traffic management; and systems engineering.
What sparked your interest in aviation?
I actually fell into it by accident. I knew very little about aviation in general when I started attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to become a civil engineer. In the beginning I felt out of place, knowing little about aircraft, air traffic control and the like, especially when you are around students who are very passionate about the subject. Little did I know that I would end up as one of those people who just love talking aviation and enjoys what they do on a day-to-day basis.
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What type of schooling did this require?
I ended up with degrees in a variety of subjects, from civil engineering to software engineering and finally in industrial engineering. Although the mix of subjects wasn't entirely planned, I think all of them have in some way contributed to a broad understanding of the aviation applications, concepts and systems than I end up consulting on.
Describe a typical day
Being a consultant and running my own company means that I wear a lot of hats on a daily basis. Although most of my time is spent doing the actual technical work, I end up having to make time for things like business development, proposal writing, and other more mundane office work. It just comes with the territory.
What are the best things about your job and the worst?
I really enjoy the freedom of working for myself. It allows me to be flexible with my schedule and also gives me the opportunity to work on different projects and systems. Anything from simulations for airport expansion projects to doing systems engineering on future ATM systems for the NextGen programme.
With this unfortunately comes the requirement for finding contracts and proposals to pursue, which means there are definite highs and lows in terms of work load and employment.
No consulting company expects their employees to be busy on project work 100% of the time, so that is the mindset that has to exist when you decide to work for yourself.
What type of challenges do you face when working?
Given the fact that I get to work on a variety of different contracts, the challenges vary from project to project. One of the personal challenges I face quite frequently is that the projects I work on are typically medium to long-term infrastructure planning projects, so you won't see the fruits of your labour appreciated for many years to come.
From a business perspective, being a fairly young consultancy means that sometimes I have to struggle with getting recognised as a company and getting potential clients to understand what it is that I can offer.
What is your advice to someone in your industry?
I think it is important for someone in the aviation consulting industry to have a broad background and understanding of topics and concepts. Being an expert in a certain area is perfectly fine, but being too narrowly focused will usually not grow your company and client base. Also, while it is critical to be academically and technically competent in a certain areas, being able to communicate and relate with clients is almost as - if not more - important.
Source: Flight International
