Inside Track - 1996-10-07

<H1> Inside Track</H1><H3>United plans E-Ticket Expansion</H3><B>United Airlines</B> is planning a global expansion of its electronic ticketing capabilities next spring, although its exact country-by-country schedule has not yet been set. "We might introduce it country by country, or we might just introduce it systemwide on one day-but we think Europe will happen first, then Asia, then Latin America," spokesman Tony Molinaro said. In the United States, travelers are accepting electronic ticketing 30 percent of the time that it is available, Molinaro said.

<H3>ARC Requires Affidavit</H3>Corporations interested in applying to the <B>Airlines Reporting Corp.</B> to issue tickets are now required to submit an affidavit from a corporate officer that travel services will be offered to the public in some way, according to Barry Lemley, director of agency accreditation services for the Arlington, Va.-based entity. Although ARC no longer requires that corporations process 80 percent of all sales from the public to be accredited, Lemley said, ARC executives decided to require the affidavit before approving an application.

<H3>Lufthansa Cutting Commissions</H3><B>Lufthansa</B> will announce in mid-November a cut in payments to German travel agents in an effort to reduce distribution costs from 25 to 20 percent, chief executive of marketing Hemjoe Klein said last month. The carrier also will introduce ticketless travel Nov. 1 throughout Germany, and will test it on flights to London and Paris. The airline hopes to offer ticketless travel to North America with partner <B>United </B>next year.

<H3>A Comeback For Canada Caps?</H3>Canadian carriers are likely to reintroduce commission caps by the first quarter of 1997, predicted attorney Jeffrey Miller at a recent <B>Topaz</B> meeting. The Ellicott City, Md., attorney, who specializes in travel issues, said that since U.S. carriers have settled the Minneapolis commission cap case, they'll be free to match any Canadian attempts to cap commissions there.

In Europe, Miller is waiting for airlines to reduce or eliminate commissions on transatlantic routes due to the deep discounts already available in the market. "I've seen discounts of 20 to 25 percent off any fare type in the transatlantic market by major carriers," he said. "How long does it take to realize, 'why pay the agency?' "

<H3>SAS To reduce Online Commissions?</H3><B>SAS</B> may soon announce a cut in travel agency commissions for seats booked online by travelers. Sources at the airline said that by the end of this month, SAS will issue a document outlining a new distribution policy that addresses the impact of the Internet on the ticketing process. That policy will include posting net fares on corporate intranets and lowering the 9 percent commission for flights booked directly by the traveler on the Internet. Sources speculated that the commission on online bookings would be lowered to 5 percent, as <B>Northwest Airlines</B> has done, or to 4 percent, as SAS did on the domestic season ticket it began offering last year.

<H3>BTCC ReBids Air Contract</H3>The <B>Business Travel Contractors Corp.</B> in November will go out to bid on traffic in 50 markets in and out of 26 cities. BTCC president Kevin Mitchell said he met with four airlines on a 108-city, $45 million bid out of Philadelphia that the group delivered last month. Two of those carriers-one big, one small-said they would wait and make a proposal on the November bid. Separately, <B>Reno Air </B>said it is giving "serious consideration" to participation in the BTCC.

<H3>Reno Plans Int'l. Code Sharing</H3><B>Reno Air</B> vice president of marketing and sales Steve Sarner said the airline is likely to set up an international code-sharing arrangement in 1997-an unusual step for a low-cost carrier. Meanwhile, <B>Southwest</B>'s vice president of sales, Dave Ridley, said the airline "might experiment with that at some point. I wouldn't expect any mega-announcement soon, but [Southwest CEO] Herb Kelleher is open to many ideas."

<H3>Travel Index In The Works</H3><B>McCord Travel Management</B> plans to launch a quarterly index of corporate travel opinion sometime this fall. The index will be based on telephone interviews of 200 travel managers at Fortune 500 companies conducted by the <B>Louis Harris</B> research organization. McCord and Harris are attempting to create a comprehensive survey targeted at respondents who are representative of corporate America, rather than of McCord's client list.