GBTA Opposes Lufthansa Group’s Proposal to Force Channel Shift

The Lufthansa Group airlines announced that it plans to add a surcharge to tickets purchased anywhere other than its websites, service centers and airport ticket counters beginning on September 1, 2015. The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) – the voice of the global business travel industry – issued the following statement in response:

We believe that this planned strategy will negatively impact corporate travel programs both directly and indirectly in the following manner:

• It is a direct price increase to managed travel programs with no corresponding benefit.
• It will cause fragmentation of existing distribution processes, which is unnecessarily disruptive, resulting in significant increased costs to the corporation.
• It will further result in decreased price transparency if carried out by not only Lufthansa, but other airlines in the industry.

GBTA recognizes that change in the marketplace, even disruption, can lead to positive outcomes for the business traveler and the corporation, but that in this case the cost of disruption far outweighs the benefit. This position was carefully considered by our committees and leadership after discussions with Lufthansa representatives and our industry partners.

As the voice of the business travel industry and the corporate travel buyer, GBTA strongly opposes the Lufthansa Group’s plan and calls on Lufthansa to reconsider their September deadline.  We propose Lufthansa enters into continued discussions to find a constructive path forward with the buyer professionals and their corporations who ultimately bear the entire cost of global travel.