The monster project should have been ready by now. Swiss was supposed to be the first airline to go live within Lufthansa Group. The date was set for first quarter of 2018. The other network airlines should then have gradually converted their websites to the new single platform code-named Airline.com. At the end of 2018 it would have been Lufthansa's turn.
But nothing happened. Already this spring it became clear that the Lufthansa Group's megaproject Airline.com is significantly delayed. And in the meantime, the backlog on planning has grown further. «We're not going live until 2020,» confirms a spokesperson for the group to aeroTELEGRAPH.
External costs of 56 million euros
The long delay is due to technical obstacles that have appeared again and again. Even simple procedures such as issuing boarding passes did not work properly during tests, according to one insider in Frankfurt. «A disaster,» he comments. Airline.com is the project of Lufthansa to bring the booking machines of the group airlines Austrian, Brussels, Lufthansa and Swiss up to a uniform standard.
Lufthansa relied on an external software development partner to build the joint platform. The Irish company Datalex, which specializes in applications for the travel industry, did not deliver what had been promised. The Germans therefore recently terminated the contract, which according to media reports is worth 56 million euros. Now Lufthansa and Datalex are arguing about how much the airline has to pay. In addition Lufthansa has already invested a lot of internal resources in the project. Over a hundred people worked on it.
Step by step instead of Big Bang
As a result, Airline.com is now two years behind schedule. To avoid risking anything, Lufthansa has decided not to carry out a Big Bang anymore and to change everything at the same time. «We are now planning to gradually go live with individual functions», says the spokesperon. The group no longer wants to name a new date when Airline.com will be fully operational.
Lufthansa bringt Airlines online auf Linie
Der Ablauf der Buchungen wird bei allen Konzernairlines gleich sein. Neu sehen Kunden etwa schon bei der Eingabe des Datums die Preise.
Um die Zusatzeinnahmen zu steigern, werden Passagieren bereits mitten in der Buchung Upgrademöglichkeiten angezeigt.
Die Webseiten der vier Fluggesellschaften kommen künftig zwar noch in eigenem Design daher, werden aber in Sachen Bedienung gleich funktionieren.
