|
Under-cutting: TMCs to confront Delta
Friday, October 09, 2009 A delegation of senior travel management company bosses from Europe are set for showdown talks with Delta Air Lines in Atlanta next week. The group, which includes Ken McLeod, director corporate of agency consortium Advantage, will demand that the airline stop undercutting agents with discount air fares on its website.  ttgbusiness.com understands the carrier has been selling some business-class tickets for up to $500 cheaper than TMCs can obtain on their global distribution systems. At least two corporates are known to have threatened to switch their TMC because the agent has not been able to book the cheapest available ticket on the day. The GDSs – Sabre, Amadeus, Galileo and Worldspan – are all supposed to have signed full-content agreements with Delta, meaning agents should always have access to the cheapest tickets. The airline has said the undercutting is not deliberate and instead blamed a technical glitch which cannot be solved until November. McLeod said agents in Europe cannot afford to wait that long. He said the situation was increasingly serious for a number of Advantage members, but he praised Delta for engaging with their concerns. “You have to give Delta its due. They are prepared to listen to us which is more than some other airlines. We need to impress on them that the corporate travel business in the UK is different than that of the US. “Maybe they’re all too busy with the Air France-KLM tie-up and are forgetting what’s happening on the ground. “I don’t think they’re undercutting us deliberately, but clearly the yield management department are talking to the revenue management department or the sales department and the whole thing is a mess.” A number of trade figures have said the perennial problem of undercutting had become particularly acute in the summer months. Wexas Travel Management boss Gordon Mowatt said airlines from the US and the Far East had been the worst culprits, though according to his operations department the situation was starting to ease. A Delta spokesman said: "Delta is currently working to align pricing between its worldwide delta.com site and the various GDSs which are localised to each different country. "This will enable Delta's trade partners to access the best available fares for their customers, available on delta.com, from the GDS they use. The technological work to resolve this issue is in progress and is due to be completed in early November."
|
