Germany’s Hahn Air recently used the open-source
travel distribution platform Winding Tree to issue the world’s first airline
ticket powered by the blockchain technology, the company announced.
Hahn has also become the first airline company to fly
passengers holding blockchain-powered tickets on its flight that took off from Dusseldorf
to Luxemburg on November 18.
The Winding Tree platform allows Hahn Air to list its
inventory and manage their reservation requests and receive payments as soon as
the booking process is completed. Passengers can pay by cash, credit card, or cryptocurrency
(LIF token or Ether).
Frederick Nowotny, head of sales engineering at Hahn
Air, said: “We at Hahn Air are constantly exploring new technologies and we are
proud to now demonstrate our technical capability to issue blockchain-powered
Hahn Air tickets. We are pleased to be partnering with Winding Tree, the most
established company when it comes to distributing travel inventory in the
blockchain.
“Our goal is to investigate and monitor the
opportunities this technology holds for travel distribution, even if widespread
acceptance is still a vision of the future,” Nowotny added.
The use cases of blockchain technologies in the travel
industry are increasing rapidly. Earlier this month, Australian travel business
Webjet launched its long-in-development blockchain-based platform in order to
remove disparities in hotel booking data. Webject, which has been using
Microsoft’s Azure blockchain-as-a-service sandbox since 2016, said that the new
Rezchain application will address hotel reservation status and overcharges by
looking for data mismatches in real-time between customers, hotels and booking
agents, and sending alerts if any are found.
UK-based travel firm Alternative Airlines recently collaborated with Swiss cryptocurrency service Utrust to be able to provide customers with the ability to book flights using cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dash, DigiByte (DGB) and Utrust’s native token UTK. This partnership will introduce instant cross border transactions, buyer protection, and crypto-to-cash settlements to the clients of Alternative Airlines.
Interested in hearing more in person? Find out more at the Blockchain Expo World Series, Global, Europe and North America.
The post Hahn Air claims first real-world airline ticket delivered through blockchain appeared first on The Block.
Credit: Blockchain News
