Articles tagged “Lufthansa Group”

European governments once believed they could rely on the market to ensure their links to the outside world. But many are starting to become more protective of their national airlines. In many ways, it is a return to the past.

This year Lufthansa made a series of small moves that, when looked at together, reveal a doubling down on its multi-front strategy to pressure Amadeus, Travelport, and especially Sabre to conform more to its preferred airline distribution practices. Connect the dots, and it looks like a low-grade war.

Lufthansa Group has responded to digital disruption by creating a company within a company, Yilu. The group's low-cost carrier Eurowings has already begun using the subsidiary's tools for cross-selling taxi rides.

Lufthansa Group's Airlinecheckins.com may not be the most amazing innovation ever, but considering it only took about 30,000 euros to build, the return on investment has been impressive. The platform allows customers to check in for flights on more than 200 airlines. And as the facilitator, Lufthansa gets a lot of data about passenger preferences.

It's not easy to bring the 'fail fast' mantra to an airline. But through its innovation hub in Berlin, Lufthansa is trying to bring some tech-world principles to the airline business. That's a good thing.

Like many airlines, Lufthansa worries that other companies could disrupt parts of its business like Netflix did with movies. To prevent that, it has launched a data-based offensive.

Bots have come a long way since Alaska Airlines introduced 'Ask Jenn' about a decade ago. But they're still not perfect. At least for now, we'd rather have a human touch.

Ukraine's flag carrier is the first airline to follow Lufthansa's bold September 2015 move to add a surcharge to bookings made via third-parties. Yet the industry may be overstating the threat to the revenue of the middlemen.

Lufthansa is investing in direct booking connectivity with corporations (and the commercial initiatives to make them happen). The technological and commercial Tarmac being laid may pave the way for others, like IAG's British Airways.

Lufthansa Group is about a decade late in realizing the European low cost carriers are a massive threat. But it's good to see the company trying to do something about it and expanding its Eurowings operation.