Travelport has reached an agreement with Emirates that allows its agencies to avoid the carrier’s global distribution fee, which it began charging Thursday, Travelport announced.
Emirates earlier this year announced it would introduce a surcharge ranging from $14 to $25 per ticket on all global distribution bookings, in conjunction with the launch of new content and services through its New Distribution Capability-enabled direct-connect platform, Emirates Gateway. Under their new commercial agreement, Travelport agencies can access Emirates’ content without a surcharge via a new dedicated channel, to which they will automatically be upgraded. Agents also can access Emirates’ NDC content and services via Travelport’s Smartpoint platform and its RESTful/JSON application programming interfaces by signing NDC-specific agreements with both Travelport and Emirates, according to Travelport.
In addition, the agreement includes a long-term extension of Emirates’ use of Travelport’s Rich…