Lufthansa is claiming to be the first traditional airline to offer a direct booking function with Google Flights.
The German carrier said ‘Book on Google’ allows users in the US to make a booking on its own website, LH.com, from within Google Flights on their desktops and mobiles.
The airline announced earlier this year that it plans to increase direct bookings to cut costs, and it has since introduced a charge for bookings made via GDSs. The charge applies to all Lufthansa bookings and those of its partner airlines, Austrian, Brussels and SWISS.
"The partnership with Google will facilitate online bookings particularly on mobile devices," said CCO of Lufthansa Jens Bischof.
"With ‘Book on Google’ users have a seamless booking experience on Google Flights.
"Lufthansa is the first legacy carrier world-wide to which Google Flights offers this direct booking function. With ‘Book on Google’ we will strengthen ticket sales in this channel.
"This is an important step in realising Lufthansa’s new sales and distribution strategy, which strives to modernize existing booking processes as well as to develop new and alternative distribution channels."
In addition, German tour operator Bucher Reisen and Germany’s largest ticket wholesaler AERTiCKET have launched a direct connect to the Lufthansa Group reservation system.
The independent travel agency chaim Lufthansa City Center has agreed to develop an alternative distribution channel based on Direct Connect, said the airline.
"We are delighted to have achieved the first direct connects with important sales partners. Through this, we are able to work towards a modern, independent and customizable range of offers," said Bischof
"As a complement to our existing channels Direct Connect offers our technology partners a wide range of perspectives for more individual and varied offers for our joint customers."
