LUTE Launches Multisource System

LUTE Technologies AG, based in Zug, Switzerland, rolled out LUTE 2, its full-product, multisource travel distribution system.

LUTE currently has connections with Lufthansa, United, Continental, American, Emirates and Singapore airlines. Air Canada and US Airways will be connected shortly, and the company expects to add more airlines in the future.

The system enables travel agencies, wholesalers and online portals to book airline tickets from different sources in a common environment, reducing the need for internal systems that switch between various data sources.

The platform also allows suppliers and distributors to set the terms of their commercial arrangements.

LUTE is based on Farelogix’ FLX platform, which uses a supplier content adaptor to connect with  supplier reservations systems via whatever type of messaging protocol is required or preferred by the supplier: Edifact, XML, GDS or proprietary. The content is then standardized for use in the FLX platform.

Non-air services such as hotels and external content will be provided by partners such as Anixe and BeDynamic, said Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, chief technology officer of LUTE.

O’Neil-Dunne said that although the initial launch is confined to Europe, LUTE 2 is certified to issue airline tickets in through BSPs in the U.K., Germany, Spain, India and Australia and through ARC in the U.S. If an airline prefers, the user can issue an airline ticket, rather than a BSP or ARC ticket, he said.

“Whatever airlines and their business partners want, we’ll deliver it,” he said.

“We’ve gone away from ‘You must do it this way.’ We’re moving away from ubiquity. It’s about the relationship between airlines and intermediaries. There will be more choice and closer, more unique relationships.”

O’Neil-Dunne, who also is managing partner of the T2 Impact distribution and e-commerce consultancy, emphasized that LUTE 2 is not intended to replace GDSs. “We are providing supply chain services to improve the quality of relationships,” he said.

LUTE is targeting “large-scale” companies, such as consolidators, travel agency chains and wholesalers, he said. “This is not cheap to implement,” he said. “We’re providing tools for very complex business relationships.”

But the size of the company is not as important as whether it has a relationship with a trading partner for which implementing LUTE would make sense.

While LUTE will not be servicing small agencies, “some of our customers, such as consolidators, might be.” For example, a small agency might decide to book all its Lufthansa tickets with AERticket, a launch customer that is one of the largest wholesalers in Germany.