Travel managers warn they’ll spend less with Lufthansa
Half of travel managers say they will cut spending with Lufthansa once the €16 per booking surcharge comes into effect, according to research by the GBTA.
In June, the Lufthansa Group announced it plans to add a Direct Connection Cost to tickets purchased anywhere other than its websites, service centers and airport ticket counters beginning today.
A poll of GBTA members shows 50% of travel buyers who currently include Lufthansa in their travel programme as a preferred carrier plan to decrease spending with the airline once this fee takes effect.
Additionally the poll showed 51% of all respondents definitely or probably will not use Lufthansa as a preferred carrier if the Lufthansa Group moves forward with the fee.
The GBTA has already warned Lufthansa its plan will ‘negatively impact’ corporate bookings.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association slammend Lufthansa’s new travel agency booking portal, which they can use to avoid the fee, as not yet fit for purpose.
It said many of its members who had been through the registration process described it as ‘tortuous and frustrating’ and complained that a helpline was manned only from 09:00 to 17:00.
Following a meeting between the SPAA and Lufthansa ahead of today’s fee introduction, SPAA vice president Alan Glen said: "For now, it is evident that Lufthansa’s DCC package is simply not fit for purpose. It adds unjustified new cost and a technically unproven extra operational burden to the already heavy workload of the airline group’s Travel Partners.
"The SPAA’s Air Committee – along with travel sector colleague organisations – will continue to challenge LH to review and change its approach to its future partnership with the travel sector."
Lufthansa’s chief commercial officer Jens Bischof said: "We want to work together with the travel agents and the global distribution systems to make the sale of air tickets more up-to-date, more inexpensive and more customer-minded.
"And to this end we have swiftly developed a range of IT solutions that will be offered to our customers in the near future."
He said the Lufthansa Group was working on booking platforms for key-account corporate clients which will give them and their corporate travel agencies direct access to the air travel products of airlines within the group.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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