With Lufthansa's seating robot, you'll have the best seat on board so you don't miss your connection

Trips, especially long ones, often involve changes of aircraft, as is the case, for example in the large Lufthansa hubs of Frankfurt or Munich. It is important that the transit occurs smoothly and also a small feeder delay can cause stress. "Will I be able to catch my connecting flight?" is the question that arises, followed by "Can I sit further for landing?"

Increasingly, seat selection is a juggling act that people try to avoid, and if you are traveling in economy, it is easy to end up in the back of the plane. In the event of a connecting flight then Getting off right away or not can make the difference between catching or missing the connection, so here, thanks to technology, the LH group is trying to achieve a double result: avoid having to reprotect the passenger and simplify ground operations.

"Seating Robot" and "AutoTOBT" are two small technical innovations also recently introduced at Frankfurt and Munich airports. These optimizations have a significant impact on the smoothness of the transit process and in the long run contribute to more stable ground operations.

Before departure, the Seating Robot check connecting times of all people in Economy Class who have to continue their journey. These data are compared with the Minimum Connecting Time, the minimum connecting time normally required for transit. If time is short, the "Seating Robot" assigns an optimized seat to the person concerned, provided it has not yet reserved a seat. During tests in Frankfurt from March to June this year, it was found that the "Seating Robot" lends itself to many uses; it is definitely worth using. The seat being suggested increases the likelihood of catching one's connecting flight.

This system intervenes only in the case of an approach flight and only if the passenger has not yet chosen a seat on board.

In addition to the smoothness of boarding procedures, the punctuality of takeoff also depends on the timely performance of all the other tasks that go into making up the process. One benchmark is the time when check-in is completed, the so-called "Target Off-Block Time" (TOBT). This time is the basis for planning the so-called "turnaround," the period between landing and departure.

Lufthansa, Austrian and Swiss queues.

Until now, planning was based on average times calculated for each type of aircraft. But this undifferentiated approach was not always ideal. Thanks to a new automatic calculation method, Now "AutoTOBT" allows you to predict the end of the handling process with much greater accuracy. Reliable estimation is of enormous importance for smooth turnaround. With the introduction of "AutoTOBT," the quality of forecasting has improved significantly, and the system is constantly being refined.

"Seating Robot" and "AutoTOBT" affect aspects that are small but of enormous importance to the flight in question. This confirms how essential it is to study each factor and think of new solutions. From capacity planning to ground processes to technical innovations, the individual airline divisions of the Lufthansa Group are constantly looking for small and large ways to improve the quality of experience for all people traveling with us.