In 2015, Lufthansa Group’s addition of a surcharge on tickets purchased using a global distribution system made waves in the industry. Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr described this as the “future of the industry”. This decision was seen as a break from participating fully in the GDS distribution model, and it encouraged travelers and agents to book through Lufthansa Group websites directly. This move wasn’t without controversy due to inadequate accommodation for corporate travel interests. The origin of such systems dates back to 1950s when IBM developed a unique data processing system named SAGE for the US air defense. This led to a collaboration with American Airlines, after an accidental meeting of an IBM salesperson and American Airlines CEO, which ultimately led to the creation of computer reservation systems.