Today Air France-KLM said it has entered into a partnership with Winding Tree, the blockchain platform that aims to reduce the number of intermediaries in travel sales.
The airline noted its long-standing commitment to innovation and is pleased to be one of the first airlines on the platform. Winding Tree’s existing airline partners include Lufthansa and subsidiary Eurowings, Swiss Air, Swissport, Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines, and Air New Zealand.
Winding Tree aims to open up the currently concentrated travel market. They point to Priceline, Expedia and their subsidiaries controlling 95% of the online travel agency market. And Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport combined have a 99% market share for non-direct airline tickets.
The startup is still in its early stages. So far it is enabling travel partners to upload data which will be freely available for third parties to incorporate. Nothing is live, but some demonstration data is viewable. It has not yet reached the stage of processing transactions. The plan is to charge small transaction fees, which will also need to cover the costs of running on the public Ethereum network.
Pedro Anderson, founder and COO of Winding Tree, added: “The Air France KLM group has built a reputation when it comes to using technology to enhance the customer experience. We are excited to join them in their goal and commitment towards becoming the leading airline in customer intimacy.”
In February Winding Tree raised just over $14 million in an ICO.
