Lufthansa Extends ‘Pay As You Fly’ Program To Subsidiaries

The Lufthansa Group is broadening its “Pay as you Fly” business travel program in order to make it available for its subsidiaries, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines, according to a post from aboutTravel on Monday (March 22).

The “Pay as you Fly” program is a B2B offer aimed solely at business travelers and has been available at Lufthansa for years. It was aimed at bigger customers, according to the post, but was not “worthwhile for them,” and so it’s now being relaxed.

Now, the program will be available for cheaper flight classes as well as the more expensive ones.

The program is available and valid for point-to-point connections and for intra-European transfer flights.

The money for the tickets, according to the post, will be debited from the credit card only after the user checks in.

The post said the program also includes current offers of the Flex tariff, such as the use of the fast lane at the airport or preferential booking. And there’s no longer a need for any minimum turnover.

Business travel was hit hard by the pandemic as corporations moved their important meetings to Zoom — and as the pandemic ends, some of them may keep it that way, with Zoom being a less expensive alternative.

In terms of predicting when travel will at least start to come back, some have said this summer or as far as 2023, or possibly not at all.

PYMNTS reports that the vaccines being rolled out now were one of the main holdouts for people needing safety precautions. Around 60 percent of business travelers said they expected to be traveling normally by the end of the year.

Additionally, travelers will likely have to contend with digital travel passes, in which they have to prove their vaccination status or negative COVID test before being allowed to fly.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) put forth the idea with the intention that it would help make flying seem safer.