European Agency Group Files Complaint Against Lufthansa
by Michele McDonald /The European travel agency association (ECTAA) filed a formal complaint with the European Commission (EU) against The Lufthansa Group (LHG), saying its planned surcharge on GDS bookings violates the GDS Code of Conduct.
LHG plans to impose a €16 (about $18.70) charge on any booking processed by a GDS beginning Sept. 1. It said that agents can avoid the charge by booking on the LH Group-Agent platform or on individual sites of Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, and Brussels airlines.
That platform qualifies as a computer reservations system, according to ECTAA, and as such makes Lufthansa a “parent carrier” that must comply with the Code of Conduct’s rules governing parent carriers of reservations systems.
Regulation 80/2009 of the code states:
- A parent carrier shall neither directly nor indirectly discriminate in favor of its own CRS by linking the use of any specific CRS by a subscriber with the receipt of any commission or other incentive or disincentive for the sale of its transport products.
- “A parent carrier shall neither directly nor indirectly discriminate in favor of its own CRS by requiring the use of any specific CRS by a subscriber for sale or issue of tickets for any transport products provided either directly or indirectly by itself.”
Up to the EU
ECTAA said, “It will be now up to the European Commission to decide whether the proposed booking alternative, the LH Group-Agent.com platform, falls under the application of the EU Regulation 80/2009 and whether Lufthansa complies with its legal obligations.”
It said it is “further pursuing legal investigations to see whether Lufthansa’s actions infringe European competition rules” under the EU Treaty.
ECTAA added that the surcharge “will constitute a significant price increase for consumers and will put all travel agents at a competitive disadvantage compared to the direct distribution of the airlines concerned,” ECTAA said.
The association and its member groups have concluded that LGH’s alternative booking methods are “not efficient and viable alternatives, as they would constitute a considerable step backwards to the currently highly automated booking and ticketing processes through GDSs.”