Amadeus shares nosedive after clash over Lufthansa’s new fees

Amadeus shares nosedive after clash over Lufthansa’s new fees

Madrid-based GDS Amadeus’ shares dropped 9.7% yesterday, the most in five years, following Lufthansa’s announcement it will begin imposing a A$22.97 (16 euros) charge on all external bookings.

The slump in shares, according to Bloomberg, pared the GDS company’s market value to 16.7 billion euros, and has been attributed to the fear other airlines will follow suit.

Lufthansa yesterday said from 1 September the airline will implement a surcharge per ticket for any reservations made outside its own channels, leaving GDS’s to either pass on the fee to customers, or absorb costs into their business model.

Lufthansa argues the flights sold via GDS’s costs the company 100 million euros per year and the new Distribution Cost Charge (DCC) will help contain rising GDS distribution costs.

“The question will be whether other airlines follow,” UBS analyst Michael Briest said in an investor note, Bloomberg and Skift reports.

“Amadeus has had a “difficult” relationship with Lufthansa and chose to absorb a 4.90-euro GDS charge from the German carrier in the past, before reaching a deal in 2010 that has now expired” Briest said, the paper states.

Amadeus has already implied it will be passing on the additional charge to customers.

“LHG have chosen to go in a different direction by introducing charges that will penalise travellers based on the shopping channel they use. Travellers will either pay more for the same service or, in the case that travel agencies are forced to accept this new commercial strategy by modifying the way they access content just for LHG, there will be extra IT costs that may ultimately be passed on to the traveller, putting the travel agent, and/or the end consumer, at a disadvantage,” Amadeus IT Group, svp Distribution, Holger Taubmann said.

Lufthansa, Air France, Iberia and SAS were founders of Amadeus in 1987.

Latest News

  • Destinations
  • News

APT Launches 2025 Asia Adventures

APT has launched its Asia Adventures for 2025, including new luxury holidays in India, Sri Lanka and Japan. Five new tours lead guests to the highlights of India, including a seven-night cruise along the rarely travelled Lower Ganges aboard the Ganges Voyager. Further south, Sri Lanka’s greatest destinations are revealed on a new 15-day Land […]

  • Cruise
  • Luxury
  • News

Seabourn announces Western Kimberley Traditional Owners as Godparents of Seabourn Pursuit

Seabourn has named Western Kimberley Traditional Owners, the Wunambal Gaambera, as Godparents of the ultra-luxury purpose-built Seabourn Pursuit. It is the first cruise line to appoint Traditional Owners as godparents of a ship. Seabourn Pursuit embarks on its inaugural season in the Kimberley region this June. The naming ceremony will take place on Seabourn Pursuit’s […]

  • Luxury

Malolo Island Resort opens brand new Spa

Fiji’s Malolo Island has added another string to its bow – opening its $1.3 million day spa on Thursday, 18th April 2024. (Lead Image: matriarch Rosie Whitton with spa staff) Located at the edge of the resort’s luscious patch of tropical rainforest, the new “Leilani’s Spa” adds another level of elevated experiences to Malolo’s already […]