Emirates has reduced its upfront point-of-sale commission for scheduled flights from 5% to 0,01% removing one of the last material commission payments from the market.
Md of Sure Voyager Travels, Janet Aldworth, told Travel News that the upfront commission had always been greatly appreciated in the market.
“Emirates’ commission payments, which have always been particularly generous because they include more fees and levies in their base fare – on which the commission is calculated – than other airlines do, have always been a great selling point for the airline. However, the scheme was at times used by certain agents to undercut their competitors and the reduction in commission should now put an end to this practice. It will also force agents to charge service fees for all airlines and should drive agents to be more customer-focused rather than revenue focused in their quoting habits,” said Janet.
Travel director of Marmalade Toast bespoke travel, David van den Heever-Liebenberg, agreed, and said the reduction in commission would ultimately benefit the customer as consultants would now be driven to quote purely with the customer’s best interests in mind. It would effectively level the playing field, said David. He added that the move would also entrench service fees in the market. He said agents should stand by these as justifiable, as agents offered a professional service to their clients.
Janet said it would be interesting to see how the move panned out for Emirates, as worldwide demand for travel was low and the airline would be unlikely to fill their aircraft as easily as in pre-COVID-19 times. “When Emirates finds that the outbound market is also not growing, due to the reduction in commission as a driver, it wouldn’t surprise me if they made the decision to reintroduce it at some point,” she said.
Travel News canvassed agents on whether the commission cut on scheduled flights had been replaced with a more generous back-end incentive, but we but were told that these agreements had not materially changed this month.
Travel News also contacted Emirates for more information but had not heard back at time of publication.
