NEW DELHI: Full service airlines may soon levy a new surcharge on passengers who do not buy tickets from them directly.
German mega airline Lufthansa group will from September 1, 2015, charge in India and abroad a fee of almost $18 (about Rs 1,200) on every ticket that is not bought from their own website or offices.
A surcharge, distribution cost charge (DCC), will have to be paid for Lufthansa group tickets bought through global distribution system (GDS) that are used by travel agents and travel portals in India and abroad.
Full service airlines pay about $5-6 per ticket as GDS charge for sales through travel agents and portals. "They do not charge this separately from passengers and the GDS fee is built in their ticket price. With Lufthansa soon going to charge separately, other full services airlines in India and abroad may follow suit," said a senior airline official.
In fact, the head of an Indian full service airline described the Lufthansa move as "interesting and worth emulating in India."
Travel agents in India are peeved at this move as it makes buying tickets from them more expensive and render them uncompetitive. Their biggest worry is that once a mega carrier like Lufthansa starts such a fee, it is just a amtter of time that other foreign airlines also follow suit.
"The new charge will not be added to flight tickets purchased using own booking channels. This predominately includes the (group) airline websites (of Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines), as well as, the service center and ticket counter at the airports," a Lufthansa statement said.
The German carrier's decision comes at a time when arguably the 'meanest' low cost carrier in the world, Ryanair, has decided not to "unnecessarily piss people off", in the words of the Irish carrier's chief Michael O'Leary. In recent days, it has gone soft on some of its hefty fees and charges.
Lufthansa has, in fact, hinted that it will go in for unbundling — something that
low cost carriers do by treating each service as separately and charging for them separately too. "In the future, the airlines will therefore offer their services on a more flexible and modular basis, with individualized price options and ancillary services...based on the principle 'you only pay for the services you want'," the airline said.
This new commercial strategy takes into account the cost differentiation in various booking channels. "Presently, the costs for using GDS are several times higher than for other booking methods, such as our own online portal... These services, however, are primarily used by other partners in the value chain. A large number of services are paid by the Lufthansa Group carriers, but are only partly used by them," the airline said.
"Among others, the GDS services comprise functionalities, which offer many extra services in addition to the basic features of booking, processing and ticketing. Such examples include the option of combining and booking world-wide, multiairline flight offers, as well as, an integrated booking and invoice processing," it added while declaring the introduction of DCC of 16, roughly $18, from September 1 for tickets not purchased directly from its group airlines.
German mega airline Lufthansa group will from September 1, 2015, charge in India and abroad a fee of almost $18 (about Rs 1,200) on every ticket that is not bought from their own website or offices.
A surcharge, distribution cost charge (DCC), will have to be paid for Lufthansa group tickets bought through global distribution system (GDS) that are used by travel agents and travel portals in India and abroad.
Full service airlines pay about $5-6 per ticket as GDS charge for sales through travel agents and portals. "They do not charge this separately from passengers and the GDS fee is built in their ticket price. With Lufthansa soon going to charge separately, other full services airlines in India and abroad may follow suit," said a senior airline official.
In fact, the head of an Indian full service airline described the Lufthansa move as "interesting and worth emulating in India."
Travel agents in India are peeved at this move as it makes buying tickets from them more expensive and render them uncompetitive. Their biggest worry is that once a mega carrier like Lufthansa starts such a fee, it is just a amtter of time that other foreign airlines also follow suit.
"The new charge will not be added to flight tickets purchased using own booking channels. This predominately includes the (group) airline websites (of Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines), as well as, the service center and ticket counter at the airports," a Lufthansa statement said.
The German carrier's decision comes at a time when arguably the 'meanest' low cost carrier in the world, Ryanair, has decided not to "unnecessarily piss people off", in the words of the Irish carrier's chief Michael O'Leary. In recent days, it has gone soft on some of its hefty fees and charges.
Lufthansa has, in fact, hinted that it will go in for unbundling — something that
low cost carriers do by treating each service as separately and charging for them separately too. "In the future, the airlines will therefore offer their services on a more flexible and modular basis, with individualized price options and ancillary services...based on the principle 'you only pay for the services you want'," the airline said.
This new commercial strategy takes into account the cost differentiation in various booking channels. "Presently, the costs for using GDS are several times higher than for other booking methods, such as our own online portal... These services, however, are primarily used by other partners in the value chain. A large number of services are paid by the Lufthansa Group carriers, but are only partly used by them," the airline said.
"Among others, the GDS services comprise functionalities, which offer many extra services in addition to the basic features of booking, processing and ticketing. Such examples include the option of combining and booking world-wide, multiairline flight offers, as well as, an integrated booking and invoice processing," it added while declaring the introduction of DCC of 16, roughly $18, from September 1 for tickets not purchased directly from its group airlines.
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