TURKISH Airlines is
cracking down on
‘Uncommitted Bookings’
and hitting agents with ADMs.
The airline distributed a debit
memo to the trade, saying
it had noted a remarkable
increase in activities related
to churning and inactive
segments. Included in the list
of offences that the airline
is clamping down on is a
€50 (R821) ADM penalty for
‘uncommitted bookings’.
The memo says an
Uncommitted Booking is where
seats are held for longer than
the usual time necessary
to close the sale, before
finalising it with an End of
Transaction entry. It does not
specify what this time is.
“If seats are blocked, Turkish
Airlines risks not being able
to sell such seats. This is
considered abuse and will
incur a €50 ADM flat fee per
seat,” the airline said.
Agencies that have been
offered a ‘special time limit’
(TNW understands this to
be a ticketing time limit
extension) must issue the
tickets accordingly, otherwise
they would be sentenced to an
ADM per seat, said the airline.
Ticketing consultant
for Travel Vision, Johan
Ehrensperger, says this is the
first “uncommitted booking”
ADM ruling that he has seen.
He says that while airlines
have been penalising agents
for churning for a while now,
these violations usually relate
to provisional bookings that
have been cancelled in the
system rather than a ruling
limiting agents to a particular
time limit to finalise a PNR.
Churning ADMs are usually
small amounts of R100 or
less, adds Johan – not over
R800 per seat.
“I find this to be a strange
ruling as GDSs auto-cancel
bookings if a consultant takes
too long to end a transaction.
We also need clarification
on exact.ly what timeframe
they consider ‘longer than
necessary’ to finalise a
booking,” he says.
Club Travel ITC Maritza
van Niekerk of Derive Travel
Services, says she has never
heard of an airline issuing
ADMs for uncommitted
bookings before.
“Exactly how would an
airline determine how long you
have to make a provisional
booking? Do they make
allowances for itineraries that
don’t work out and need to be
amended or if an agent gets
distracted by another call?” TK
did not respond to requests
for comment.
