Lufthansa has an equity stake in JetBlue and the two airlines recently kicked off a codeshare agreement from 12 of JetBlue's U.S. origin cities.
But, their ties also have evolved into a vendor-client relationship as the two signed a five-year contract in which JetBlue employees will use Lufthansa Systems' myIDTravel corporate travel-management solution, which supports self-service e-ticketing for interline flights.
Interline flights often still require much paper ticketing, according to Lufthansa Systems. The airline's IT arm says myIDTravel will enable JetBlue employee-travelers to use electronic ID tickets when traveling on interline flights.
"Your employees are able to create listings, bookings, and electronic tickets directly with all participating airlines -- even with those without commercial agreements," Lufthansa states, adding that using the tool also enables employees to carry out similiar functions in the airline's GDS.
The Lufthansa tool is also said to simplify accounting because employee travelers using myIDTravel provide immediate payment to the interline airline upon ticketing, avoiding the need for airlines to use coupons to settle the transactions through IATA.
So, the cross-Atlantic Lufthansa-JetBlue relationship now takes in codeshare and tool-share.