Written by BoardingArea @ http://boardingarea.com
Written by BoardingArea @ http://boardingarea.com
British Airways Will Start Charging A Fee For Many Third Party Bookings
British Airways has just announced that as of November 1, 2017, they'll start charging a fee of 8GBP for bookings made through many third parties, including major travel agencies. Airlines incur significant fees for bookings made through many distribution channels, and historically they've covered the cost of those fees.
As a technicality (not that this means anything to 99.99% of us), this fee is being levied for systems that don't use an NDC (New Distribution Capacity) led connection. British Airways' website, sales offices, call centers, and many self-booking tools through partner travel agencies, will be exempt from this fee.
In 2015 Lufthansa tried something similar, as they imposed a 16EUR fee for tickets booked through third parties. Their argument was that their base fares have decreased significantly, so proportionally the costs incurred through these systems increased massively.