Star Alliance hails new Digital Services Platform

Star Alliance has launched a new Digital Services Platform (DSP), aimed at helping member carriers share data when customers are travelling with several airlines.

The alliance said that the long-term aim of the platform is to “allow customers to use any member airline’s website or mobile application to obtain all the information they need for travel on several Star Alliance member airlines”.

Examples given of future use across the alliance include:

• Seat selection for an entire flight at the time of ticket reservation, for journeys where more than one member carrier is operating flights. United Airlines was the first to launch this service on February 2, allowing an eligible customer to select a seat on, for instance, a Singapore Airlines flight booked via united.com or the United app.

• Baggage tracking on journeys including more than one Star Alliance carrier. Lufthansa is already using the DSP technology to track bags via the Star Alliance Baggage Hub, which “collects relevant baggage information from a wide range of sources and makes it available to all member carriers included in a passenger’s itinerary”.

Commenting on the new platform Star Alliance CEO Jeffrey Goh said,“Most frequent travellers have a ‘home airline’ in our network and would prefer to control their entire travel experience through a single app or website. We are therefore working to create central capabilities that can be shared for use by our individual members.”

The alliance said that DSP was part of a wider strategy to “place the customer at the centre of its activities” – for example by the end of this year member carrier FFO websites will allow customers to check flight availability and book redemption seats online for flights operated by all 28 Star Alliance member airlines.