Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) has announced a multi-year distribution agreement with British Airways (BA) and Iberia Airlines (IB), enabling CWT customers to avoid the airlines’ proposed surcharge on bookings created within participating global distribution systems (GDS) that agree to these terms with IAG. The agreement, effective November 1, 2017 applies to CWT business travel and leisure clients.
“This agreement further strengthens our long-standing partnership with BA and IB and highlights our mutual commitment to the concept of new distribution capabilities (NDC) to drive improved product differentiation. While we believe GDSs provide the best technology platform available for CWT to enable best-in-market user experience and operating efficiency, we will continue to monitor and assess new technologies and capabilities,” said Brian Mogler, senior vice president, global supplier management, CWT.
Ian Luck, head of distribution, British Airways, said, “We are delighted with this new agreement which will bring both immediate and longer term benefits. We are particularly pleased with the strong undertaking CWT has made to work collaboratively with us, GDSs and other technology partners in delivering NDC content and other benefits to our customers.”
In May 2017 International Airlines Group (parent company of BA and IB) announced it would add a US$10 distribution technology charge on each airline fare component of a booking, effective November 1, 2017. A fare component is a portion of a journey, or itinerary, between two consecutive fare breaks, or legs so, for example, a round trip ticket typically contains two fare components and therefore would have an IAG surcharge of US$ 20.