NW, KLM Set Int'l Zone Fares

<B> NW, KLM Set Int'l Zone Fares</B>

By Jay Campbell

Customers of Northwest Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines are reviewing early drafts of a joint international zone fare program that soon would cover the entire route network of the two alliance partners.

The program will be a first for both airlines, jointly or separately, and stems from the April 1 integration of their sales and operations (<I>BTN</I>, April 27). As of that date, all destinations served by KLM became available through the Northwest/KLM program for meetings, incentives, conventions and expositions. The carriers have blended their entire product line, including programs such as association discounts and incentives.

According to Gail Bill, Northwest's senior manager of meeting and incentives sales, "We have sold KLM in the past, but before April our products didn't extend over. KLM had sold meetings as ad hoc groups, but we have an actual division and treat the group business differently than that of other customers."

The new international zone fares are part of what Bill called "a new meetings philosophy." When rolled out, the zones will add Northwest-KLM to a growing list of carriers developing such programs, as international tariffs are relaxed under increasingly liberal air services bilaterals (<I>Meetings Today</I>, April 27).

"With open skies to Europe, regulators are a lot more amenable to new pricing strategies," Bill said. "Things have gotten a lot more lax on zone pricing. It's not an official change, more a relaxing of policy."

Bill declined to reveal details of the program--which the carriers and their test customers still are working out--but she did say the fares will require a minimum of 10 travelers. Other airlines' international zone fare programs have different rules. United, for instance, requires 20 attendees and a two-day minimum and 30-day maximum stay. Another difference, according to Bill, is that the Northwest/KLM zone fares will be available to more destinations.

"This will be the most extensive program I've ever seen," she said, noting that other carriers may be including Europe and the Caribbean, but not Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

With the program, KLM becomes the first European carrier ever to offer zone fares in the United States, something that's nearly worthless without strong feeder traffic coming from one's own system or a partner such as Northwest. But other alliances are expected to follow suit; sources said the Delta alliance with Austrian, Sabena and Swissair is close to a similar offering.

Zone fares, which provide a fixed fare from a certain group of states to a certain destination, are particularly helpful for incentive planners in easing the budgeting process.

One group travel coordinator for a travel management company in the Northeast said the availability of such programs is an important factor in her choice of suppliers. "I was trying to get the airlines' attention about a London group I was organizing. I called British Airways, and they said, 'Send a fax.' They said they don't have zones, so I asked for a ballpark price. That was in February, and I'm still waiting. If I were holding my breath, I'd be dead today."

Contrast that with what Lynn Phelan, group and incentive travel vice president of VTS Travel in New York, experienced with the new international zone fares. "On Friday at 2:30 a former client called me looking for a comparison of Venice and Paris for an incentive trip next May," Phelan said. "He's got to get his budget approved and he needs numbers to do that. In the past, the airlines would be too busy to worry about business that far out. But using Continental's international zone fares, I was able to get back to him within a few hours.