The Lufthansa Group continues to make major investments in the areas of product customization and digitalization and announced that the group will be investing €500 million in the new development and improvement of personalized digital offers alone between now and 2020.The Group also announced another previously well-kept secret: The new Boeing Triple Seven X and its newly designed business class.
As an ITB exclusive announced by the Executive Board of the Lufthansa Group, the new Boeing Triple Seven X is planned to take off for the first time in 2020. It will also be getting a completely newly designed business class. Perfect customization and digitalization are also the theme of this newly developed generation of seats: passengers can control their seats wirelessly using their own smartphones or tablets. The position of the seat as well as the inflight entertainment can be controlled directly via their personal devices “This seat will be more than ‘just’ a seat. It will meet the specific needs of customers – no matter whether they prefer to work or sleep, or whether they are travelling with their families or on their own for business. You really have something to look forward to. Let us surprise you,” said Harry Hohmeister, speaking at the ITB.
The new business class seat doesn’t only represent quality and customization – it is also an example of a new strategy within the Lufthansa Group: an ever increasing joint responsibility for processes. For instance, the new seat was developed for the network airlines Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Swiss collectively. The sales division was also restructured last year, across all Lufthansa Group hub airlines.
Heike Birlenbach, Senior Vice President Sales Hub Airlines Lufthansa Group, emphasizes: “Standardized processes across all three hub airlines and shared structures reduce complexity and make our customers and sales partners the central focus of everything we do.” The “BookaGroup” platform that will be expanded for all three network airlines in the second quarter of 2017 is one example of this approach. Sales partners will be able to request any desired group travel combination with Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Swiss in a single web-based tool, and book them with immediate confirmation.
