Make payments fly. Eurowings.

Eurowings is Lufthansa Group’s low-cost airline and thereby it is part of the world’s largest aviation corporation. With a fleet of 205 airplanes, the airline specializes in cost-effective direct flights within Europe. Eurowings flies to 14 airports in in Germany and other European countries, and is the market leader in six airports.

Challenge

Open invoice is the preferred payment method in Germany. Nonetheless, airlines seldom offer it as an option in their portfolio. Eurowings, the German airline formerly known as Germanwings, wanting to offer this popular payment method asked us to include this in their payment options. The task was anything but trivial. For example, airlines have to cover a wide range of VAT rates. Additional challenges were individual deadlines , the necessary synchronization of posting statuses, rebookings that cause shopping cart increases, posting of gift certificates and B2B-specific issues, such as employees not being registered under their company’s address. The goal was to go live in time for the summer vacation bookings.

Solution

We solved the issue of different tax rates by creating two blocks: one for the flight price and one for taxes. We developed a interface between our and Eurowings’s IT-systems to ensure the necessary booking data transparency during factoring. In order for all invoices to be settled before the flight date, we created a system with dynamic payment deadlines. In addition, we created a connection to our automated reporting system in order to make Eurowings’s standard EPA files available.

For everything else, Ratepay’s traditional business as usual. We remain invisible as a brand and only appear in the Terms & Conditions and in the Privacy Policy . The perfect customer experience is very important to us. We provide seamless integration without pop-ups, without redirection, without additional data requests. Passengers continue their user experience on the familiar Eurowings webside instead of being redirected to a third party payment provider. We use multidimensional buyer scoring to check all Eurowings customers for identity, creditworthiness and internal criteria such as payment history and integrate this seamlessly into the ticket purchase process. Furthermore, we send out invoices, payment reminders and overdue notices and provide our own customer service team for Eurowings customers. We also manage the debt collection and regular reporting. With “My RatePAY” shoppers can access their own reporting tools

In short: Fully in line with our motto of dedication, we adapted completely to the needs of Eurowings and not the other way around.

Result

By integrating open invoice, Eurowings expanded the company’s market potential, and now offers travelers Germany’s preferred payment method. As a result, the fruitful connection between Eurowings and Ratepay was presented with the Best E-Payment Integration Award at the Best in E-Commerce competition.

Thanks to our solutions, Eurowings customers can now use their preferred payment method. Quick and easy, with one-click checkout, without being redirected or having to enter any additional information. Flights don’t have to be prepaid, the invoice is only paid before the deadline. This opened a whole new group of customers for Eurowings. On average, shopping cart value is now 50 % higher than other payment methods thanks to the additional financial flexibility of open invoices. In the big picture this means one thing: More sales.

What can we do for you? We are happy to advise you.