Foreword of the President

Over the past couple of years ECTAA has been closely monitoring the industry trends affecting travel agents’ businesses, in particular as regards the technological developments, new forms of distribution, airlines’ new remuneration policies of travel agents, etc. All these developments have changed the relations between airlines and their main distribution partners, the travel agents, as they are now competing with each other in the sale of air transport. Yet, the obligations that travel agents have to comply with under the IATA agency contract in order to sell air tickets have not changed to reflect the new realities of the market – today they are completely unbalanced and are decided unilaterally by the airlines. This is the main reason why ECTAAand GEBTA have filed a complaint against IATA and IATA airlines in October 2002 on the basis that the agency contract infringes European competition law.
I would like to highlight the importance of this complaint, which should be seen as an action of last resort after negotiations with IATA have failed after more than 4 years.
The Commission has rendered a first assessment, in which it identified four areas of concern in the agency contract, which need to be revised by IATA together with the travel agents Community (accreditation criteria, STPs, BSPs, access to fares). To date IATA has not solved these problems. The Commission has recently strongly advised IATA to revise with ECTAA/GEBTA a set of minimum agents’ accreditation criteria for Europe. As concerns the other three areas of concern, the Commission indicated that further investigations will be made. These are positive developments but a lot remains to be done to achieve a more balanced contract.

Walter Krombach,
President ECTAA


ECTAA - Group of European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operators’ Associations within the EU

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