Delta Aims At Fees

<FONT SIZE="+3"><B>Delta Aims At Fees </B>

Delta this month has joined America West (<I>BTN</I>, Sept. 16) in letting travel agents know that it will charge them for practices that drive up CRS booking costs.

In a notice posted on its CRS displays, the airline said "effective immediately, Delta will begin invoicing CRS subscribers to recover booking fees charged to Delta that have not been recovered from the CRS related to the following practices, including but not limited to: bookings made for administrative/accounting purposes, duplicate bookings, fictitious bookings, segments that are repeatedly canceled and rebooked, excessive passive bookings, speculative bookings, training/test PNRs."

The airline requested that agencies review their booking activity to identify unproductive practices, defined as "a booking entered into a CRS that is not directly related to a request from a passenger to purchase a ticket or is entered in such a way as to circumvent any of Delta's fare rules or policies." The carrier will inform agents by mail when unproductive CRS charges have been identified.