South American carrier Latam Airlines soon will levy varying surcharges based upon which GDS travel advisors use to book.
Latam currently assesses a surcharge of $13 per segment for GDS bookings made with legacy technology. But starting May 12, the fee will jump to $15.96 for North American bookings made through Amadeus and $14.19 for Sabre. For bookings made via Travelport, the surcharge will decrease to $11 per segment.
A different charge will apply depending on the GDS used, with the goal of recovering the cost for each booking, the airline wrote in an update.
Latam went live with New Distribution Capability (NDC) bookings in Sabre in late February. The carrier has NDC agreements with Amadeus and Travelport, and says launch dates will be announced soon. Latam will apply a surcharge for many NDC bookings; as with legacy bookings, the airline is aligning the amount with its costs.
With Sabre’s NDC bookings, there is no surcharge for bookings of basic fare brands, but bookings of all other fares incur a fee of $4 per segment.
Surcharges for Amadeus NDC bookings will be $3 for domestic segments and $6 for international ones.
For Travelport NDC bookings, Latam won’t assess a surcharge for bookings of the lowest-price available fare class on a route. Other bookings will be assessed at $2.50 per segment.