NEW YORK (Reuters) – German airline ‘Hahn Air’ on Monday declared it had issued the first airline tickets empowered by blockchain technology, in collaboration with ‘Winding Tree,’ an open-source travel distribution platform. Hahn Air provides scheduled and charter flights in Europe.

Blockchain, which first appeared as the system powering bitcoin, is a shared database controlled by a network of computers.

Hahn Air flew passengers carrying blockchain-powered tickets on its scheduled flight from Dusseldorf to Luxembourg on Monday. The first blockchain passengers included ‘Maksim Izmaylov,’ Founder of Winding Tree, ‘Dave Montali’, CIO of Winding Tree, & ‘Frederick Nowotny,’ Head of Sales Engineering of Hahn Air.

“For us, it is significant to look into the future to explore how can one make distribution quicker,” Jörg Troester, told Reuters in a phone interview.

He further added that after the flight, the airline would evaluate the details about how things went for the primary blockchain ticket and view plans on how to advertise it. “We are not at that point now,” Troester said.

Apart from being an airline, Hahn Air is also a distribution solution for travel agents.

Employing the Winding Tree platform, Hahn Air can manage the reservation requests, list inventory, manage the reservation requests, and accept payments once the booking process is succeeded. The airline accepts cash, credit card, cryptocurrency, (either the lif token or ether) as a mode of payment.

‘Pedro Anderson’, Winding Tree’s Chief Operating Officer, and co-founder told Reuters, “One of the aspects that we are emphasizing on our side is the difficulty that comes up when you create an open marketplace.”.

Winding Tree is a blockchain-enabled, decentralized, open-source travel distribution platform. It has allied with various airlines and service companies like Air France-KLM, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Hahn Air, and Swissport.

It has also collaborated with significant hotels like the citizenM Hotel chain, Nordic Choice Hotels, and Airport Hotel Basel.