American Airlines Riles Travel Agents With Insistence on Changes to Airfare Sales

25.08.2023 - 13:56 / skift.com / Zane Kerby / Matthew Parsons / Airlines

American Airlines has ruled out delaying the removal of 40 percent of its airfares from traditional retail channels next month.

That’s despite lobbying by the American Society of Travel Advisors, which asked the carrier to push back its move date of April 3 to the end of the year.

The society, which represents 160,000 travel agency workers, wrote to the carrier on March 8, arguing that withholding such a substantial portion of its fares from “critical independent distribution channels” will have a negative impact on corporate travelers.

With just two weeks to go, a spokesperson at American Airlines told Skift on Thursday that it was still a categorical “no.”

In its letter, Zane Kerby, president and CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors, said the “sudden bullying of valuable distribution partners into breakneck-speed implementation won’t serve our shared customers.”

The society claims many corporate travel agencies, global distribution systems (namely Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport) and third-party booking technology partners, including Concur, have stated they will not be prepared to facilitate New Distribution Capability implementation by April.

New Distribution Capability is a controversial technology standard developed by the International Air Transport Association. The idea is to give airlines more control over their airfares, rather than rely on global distribution systems.

“Without significant and key front, mid and back-office travel fulfillment systems ready and able to fully process New Distribution Capability transactions, significant disruptions to shopping and booking, including ticketing, refunds and re-ticketing are inevitable,” the letter said.

American Airlines told Skift that it disagreed. “This is incorrect. There are front, mid, and back office technology updates that need to be completed as everyone needs to invest in improving the customer experience,” said a spokesperson.

“American has spent the last 10+ years investing in its modern retailing technology and several travel sellers, technology aggregators and third-party corporate booking tools have also done the same. Currently, one out of every three travel agency issued ticket for American comes through our New Distribution Capability technology,” they added.

During those 10 years there has also been a convoluted history of surcharges and fees. Some airlines feel they pay too much commission to the global distribution systems, so encourage direct bookings by penalizing bookings made through the likes of Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport. For example, Germany’s Lufthansa in 2020 boosted the surcharge on tickets bought outside of its own channels to $21 fee in the U.S.

Global distribution systems also share part of what