Lufthansa has strongly refuted claims from the GTMC that its market share of the business travel sector has been hit by the introduction of the €16 GDS fee.
Research published by the GTMC earlier today (February 4), claimed that market share had dropped 8.5 per cent following the introduction of the charge in September, compared to the previous three months.
The organisation’s CEO Paul Wait said the figures showed corporate buyers were “voting with their feet”.
However, Lufthansa said the data only represented the volume of bookings made through the GTMC channels and “do not take account of increases in the bookings through other avenues”.
A spokesperson for Lufthansa said: “The fact is we have sold more tickets online via out own online channel, where the share has risen from 29 per cent in June 2015 to 35 per cent in December 2015.”
The German airline added that when analysing bookings across the group it cannot see any decrease due to the introduction of the DCC.
“As published in our Q3 results, the Lufthansa Group is heading towards a record in 2015. The published traffic figures for the later months of 2015 were influenced by the biggest and longest strike action in the Lufthansa history.”
The spokesperson added: “Even taking this into account, we cannot see any switch away from Lufthansa.”
The airline said it is continuing to “make a huge effort” in establishing modern and alternative distribution channels, which it hopes will provide a direct connection to the offer of the group.