BA and Iberia to charge agents for GDS bookings
IAG carriers British Airways and Iberia are to follow Lufthansa’s lead in charging travel agents to book seats via global distribution systems.
A fee of £8 per booking will be charged from November 1.
Lufthansa was the first major airline to introduce a fee for GDS bookings in September 2015. It charges €16.
BA and Iberia told agency partners today that the fee was due to the higher cost of bookings through GDSs compared with online or via their calls centres.
Also, they said they have been working on developing a New Distribution Capability (NDC) with airline association IATA. “This technology brings customers, agents and airlines benefits in merchandising flexibility and richer content.”
“We will continue to work with the GDS providers to distribute our content to our valued agency partners, however these systems and their traditional technology solutions currently carry significantly greater costs to BA and IB.”
They told trade partners: “We appreciate this represents significant change for your business.
“We have developed a wide range of NDC based connections including direct NDC connections, aggregators or self booking tools connected via NDC and an IAG booking portal.”
Earier this month, Lufthansa launched its first direct connect deals with two UK travel management companies and claimed it was planning to roll out similar agreements with other business and leisure agencies here.
Paul Wait, CEO of GTMC said it was ‘disappointing’ to see British Airways and Iberia following Lufthansa’s example in passing the cost of GDS bookings to the consumer.
He said GDS bookings were ‘by far’ the most reliable and valuable.
“This £8 fee on each fare, or any form of surcharge to the customer cannot be deemed anything other than ‘bad profits'”, said Wait.
“Whilst making the claim that the GDS is more expensive we would like to see robust evidence from BA to prove that point when all factors such as technology development and marketing costs, revenue and average ticket price are taken into consideration.
“These customer surcharges could be thought of in a number of ways. Either as an attempt to force the customer to change the way it does business, or a blunt increase in the customers budget. Or even as a potential price increase that suppresses travel.
“Feedback we have received from corporate travellers suggests overwhelmingly that this is not charge they will willingly accept. This can only add insult to the injury of what has been a testing time for BA.
“Over the weekend the TMC community worked tirelessly to support its clients – BA customers – so to see this level of loyalty and support ignored and even penalised is frustrating to say the least. As a result we fear both passenger and revenue numbers will suffer.”
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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