GDS charges imminent for agents
Galileo and Amadeus have both confirmed that they are likely to start charging agents fees. It follows warnings at this year’s Advantage Business Travel Conference in Dublin that agents could not expect to continue to receiving GDS services for free. But Amadeus has stressed that it is “100% clear” that it will continue to pay incentives to agents. Amadeus travel agency partners director Gillian Gibson told TravelMole that while the company is to conduct pilot schemes into fees in selected markets – predominantly for low fare content – this does not mean it is to abandon incentive payments. Ms Gibson told TravelMole that the two were not mutually exclusive and it was possible that in the future Amadeus would charge for some services, but would continue to make incentive payments at the same time. Meanwhile a Sabre spokesman yesterday told TravelMole that while it had not made a decision on charges, it was clear that incentive payments would have to be looked at. However a Galileo spokesman told TravelMole that it all amounted to the same thing – and whether incentives were kept or not – the basic fact remained that agents would be paying more for their GDS systems in the future. He said: “It does muddy the water somewhat. What some people call charging, others call reducing FA [Financial Assistance].” He added: “The key thing is the airlines are looking to reduce their costs. The option is either they remove their content from the GDS or the costs go elsewhere – be it in reduced FA or charging for exclusive content.” According to Amadeus, charges for low fare content could save agents money. Ms Gibson pointed out that many agents were currently paying third party providers to consolidate this information for them and claimed Amadeus could offer a better deal. She told TravelMole: “Agents are already charged for it and the costs they pay to third parties to consolidate it are more than the GDS booking fee would be. It doesn’t make sense for these fares not to be consolidated on the GDS. There has been a temporary solution where content hasn’t been in the GDS which costs more.”
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