Articles tagged “lufthansa”

Lufthansa predicts strong summer leisure demand, even with a war happening on its doorstep. Asia flights will take two hours longer than they used to when they could overfly Siberia, but the additional fuel costs will be offset by not having to pay steep Russian overflight fees.

Airlines on both sides of the Atlantic are expecting strong demand for travel between North America and Europe next summer. With Asia largely shuttered and its recovery expected to be a year behind, airlines are scrambling to add flights across the North Atlantic.

Blockchain distribution, and how it can eliminate the need for intermediaries, has been discussed for some time in travel. When these bigger players take a seat at the table, the rest of the industry needs to pay attention.

Europe's legacy carriers aren't taking the challenge from low-cost airlines lying down. Lufthansa is using its own budget arm, Eurowings, to retain leisure-travel market share coveted by the likes of Ryanair, Wizz Air, and EasyJet.

There's a "beauty contest" on for new Italian carrier Italia Trasporto Aereo's (ITA) loyalty. Delta and Lufthansa are jockeying for its allegiance, and a greater slice of Europe's fourth largest airline market.

In this pandemic, a couple of months can change everything. In July, U.S. airlines projected confidence in autumn demand, while their European counterparts were more measured. The Delta variant's spread in the U.S. has upended that calculus, with American carriers now more cautious and European airlines buoyant on the continent's travel recovery.

With its budget airline Eurowings expanding into Sweden, the Lufthansa Group is getting a toehold in Scandinavia. With both SAS and Norwegian Air downsizing, Lufthansa and other European airlines think the region is ripe with opportunity.

A significant ancillary play from the Canadian online travel agency, but not quite the leap forward for so-called new distribution capability in the U.S. many would want to see, given Spirit's reach and target flyers.

Lufthansa appears to be playing well what could've been a weak hand in its negotiations with distribution middlemen. But this deal also may help tech player Travelport level the playing field with some of its rivals.

Lufthansa's test partnership may or may not work out. But what's certain is that all major travel rewards programs have broad opportunities to use their customer databases in ways that luxury retailers such as Aston Martin and Omega will actually like.