German airline Lufthansa will use Google Cloud services to minimise disruptions caused by flight delays and other irregularities.

The two companies will build an AI-based platform that will suggest scenarios to return to a stable flight plan should adverse weather or flight delays impact customers.

The company will be migrating data from various parts of its business that are relevant to flight schedules, such as aircraft replacements and its crews work patterns.

In the future, it will be possible to offer faster rebooking possibilities across all Lufthansa services, the airline said.

A joint team of operations experts, developers and engineers from the Lufthansa and software engineers from Google Cloud will be developing and testing the appropriate platform, with a test launch set to take place in Zurich with SWISS.

«Through this collaboration, we have a significant opportunity to revolutionise the future of airline operations,» said Thomas Kurian, CEO for Google Cloud. «We’re bringing the best of Lufthansa Group and Google Cloud together to solve airlines biggest challenges and positively impact the travel experience of the more than 145 million passengers that fly annually with them.»

A number of companies have already begun the AI revolution of airlines, such as British Airways and its AI-powered robots that aim to help reduce congestion and help customers with queries at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5.

The two bots will take part in a trial, which is part of a wider, five-year plan to improve customer experience. This is backed by a £6.5 billion investment, which has also seen BA roll out 3D printing, driverless baggage vehicles, and other innovations such as automated check-in desks and more.

At Heathrow, traffic controllers are trialling AI technology that could see the proposed third runway built without the need for a new control tower.

The airport has said that a 2.5 million «digital tower laboratory«, with a suite of ultra-high definition cameras and AI technology, has been built at the base of Heathrow’s existing tower.