German Travel Industry Miffed Over New Lufthansa Pricing System

German flagship airline Lufthansa announced on Monday it plans to abolish all payment of travel agency commissions in Germany starting September 2004. The airline said the move would help it to introduce a ‘net pricing system’ and bring in more transparency as travel agencies will be able to provide customers with a separate bill for their services. German travel agencies, however, fear the measure will lead to a hike of 5-9 percent in the price of airline tickets. President of the German Association of Travel Agencies (DRV), Klaus Laaepple, told news agency dpa on Tuesday that Lufthansa had gone ahead with the move without consulting the travel industry. He also criticized that the new pricing model would mean that each travel agency would have to calculate its own commissions and the customer would need to go to more than one travel agency to compare prices. "Lufthansa has disqualified itself as a reliable partner," Laepple said.