Sabre Travel Network will charge airlines an average of 2.3 percent higher fees beginning Feb. 1, with the exception of bookings covered under the DCA Three-Year Option discount program, which has two dozen participants. Meanwhile, a Worldspan spokesperson said the company has not and does not plan to announce its pricing. Former Worldspan board member Al Lenza, vice president of e-commerce and distribution at Northwest, said Worldspan joined Galileo and Sabre in raising international segment fees. Another major airline executive said his company had not yet heard from Worldspan.
Lenza added that GDS companies "also have, in the last few months, created a price for the ticket control number data, and who knows what they will concoct now that, come Jan. 31, they can charge different fees to different carriers." He referred to the effective date for the U.S. Department of Transportation's GDS deregulation
(BTNonline, Jan. 5).
Like Amadeus
(BTN, Dec. 8, 2003), Galileo has completely reworked the basis for its charges. According to a Galileo spokesperson, "Our 2004 pricing actions are largely a fine-tuning of methodology. The new billing methodology reflects our belief that a flat unilateral percentage increase across the board is not appropriate for carriers amid the difficult and challenging environment they face today. Instead, we are moving toward aligning our pricing directly to those areas of an airline's business that enable it to generate revenue and better link our pricing to the transaction activities and associated costs of providing GDS services. Individual airline experience will vary depending on transaction mix. As a result, some airlines will see an increase, while others will actually experience a reduction in their booking fees. To achieve this, we have frozen base fees, reduced premium fees and changed the methodology from net to gross on interactive link premiums in certain regions, to more consistently price across the globe on a transaction basis." Interactive link premiums include services provided in Galileo's highest level of participation.