It hasn’t been a
greatest seven days for Lufthansa with its plans to introduce a
Euro 16 levy on all bookings made via intermediaries. First of all, a tax
loophole in Brazil meant that travel agencies in the country are going to
be exempt from paying the fee when it is introduced on 1 September. Then
it emerged that Brazilian agencies will be joined by those in China, Hong
Kong, Iran, Yemen, Libya and New Zealand with a similar postponement. Now, in a
strongly statement, a group of leading online travel agencies in Europe have
called on Lufthansa to scrap the proposal immediately. The OTAs signing
the plea include two of the big guns in Europe, Lastminute.com Group and
eDreams Odigeo, alongside Travelgenio, Travelplanet24, Travix (run by BCD
Travel), Unister Travel, e-Travel and Etraveli.
Although none of the
companies on their own punch enough weight to deter Lufthansa, perhaps
with the slight exception of Lastminute.com and eDreams Odigeo, as a group they
estimate some four million Lufthansa tickets are sold on an annual basis. There
is no suggestion of a boycott in the statement issued by Simmons &
Simmons, a UK-based law firm. Instead, they claim the GDS tax will “have a
significant negative impact on consumers and the industry as a whole”. This,
they argue, will come about through limiting choice, increased prices to
consumers, a reduction in fare transparency and a restriction on agencies “in
their ability to serve their customers”. View more…,
In brief, finally it was determined that Lufthansa
surcharge is “manifestly illegal” and a “direct attack on the OTA business
model”, and called up by a group of leading online travel agencies in Europe.
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