AA's EveryFare Roster At 90, TQ3 Readies Rollout

American Airlines CEO Don Carty this week told Business Travel News that more than 90 travel agencies had signed up for the carrier's EveryFare program, including Boston-based Travel One, which yesterday became the first in New England to enlist. Thus far, American has identified only 10 of the 90 participants.

The only mega travel management company to formally join, TQ3 Maritz Travel Solutions, recently completed testing with six corporate clients and this week is preparing to roll out the program.

"The tests are over and they went remarkably well," said Kathie Lia, TQ3 director of technology marketing. "Even as we speak, we are putting the final touches on an addendum to start signing up clients. We are getting ready to implement it for whoever wants it."

Lia said all six clients were encouraged by the tests, though results varied depending on the client's particular city pairs. "We have found that all the Y and Q fares out there from American have a comparable Web fare at a 5 percent savings," she said.

Meanwhile, American is continuing efforts to gain more agency participants. "EveryFare is gaining momentum and we have lots of additional prospects," Carty said. "Radically changing distribution costs is inevitably driven by our need to narrow the big cost gap between ourselves and low-cost carriers."

EveryFare provides participating travel agencies with American's complete range of fares, including Internet fares previously unavailable in the agency channel, in exchange for gradually taking on the cost burden of global distribution segment fees.