Lufthansa Calls Direct Booking a Success as British Airways Is Poised to Copy It
Photo Credit: Word on the street (meaning Wall Street) is that IAG (owner of British Airways) is next on the runway for changing its distribution mix. Flickr / John Crowley
Skift Take
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.
The airline industry has been watching Lufthansa's performance since summer 2015, when it launched a major investment and commercial effort in direct-booking connections with the corporations and travel agencies that buy high volumes of its tickets.
International Airlines Group, parent company of British Airways and Iberia, may make a similar move this year, according to interviews on a background basis that Skift did with industry executives and investment analysts.
If it does, British Airways will benefit from the work the German flagship carrier has done. By pushing direct connections to travel agencies that don't book direct, Lufthansa has prompted many travel management companies (TMCs), other travel companies, and aggregators to develop the "middleware," or technical plumbing and data feeds, needed. Now that those connections are becoming available, they could be used by other airlines, too.
And Lufthansa also did the hard work, risking the ire of travel agents, by impos
