Net Trans, the agency which recovers hotels commissions, has opened new offices in the UK and Germany and is planning to move into France later this year.
The London-based office is being run by John Melchior, a former senior executive with Radius Travel. It will also cover Ireland.
Mr Melchior, Net Trans' director of sales UK, said that UK agents were losing about £20m a year in unpaid commissions.
"Our analysis shows British agencies make around £500 million of commissionable hotel bookings every year. That figure should earn agents £50 million in commission but only 60 per cent of it is getting through," he said.
The German office, which also covers Austria and Switzerland, is based in Frankfurt and run Werner Meyer.
The French office is expected to be based in Paris but no one has yet been appointed to manage it.
Net Trans, which is based in Tonsberg, Norway, has among its clients Amadeus, Worldspan and CWT.
FBT signs agreement with Hotelzon
The Finnish Travel Bureau (FBT), the largest travel management company in the country, has signed an agreement with hotel booking company Hotelzon to give it access to 70,000 hotels worldwide.
The deal will give FBT, based in Helsinki and with gross sales in 2005 of 310.6m, access to Hotelzon's hotels in countries across Europe as well as China, where Hotelzon has nearly 1,400 hotels, India and the US.
Jukka Näräkkä, managing director of FBT, said corporate clients would have online access to all the properties and could book in accordance with their company travel policy.
easyJet's pre-tax loss of £40m
Europe's second largest low cost carrier, easyJet made a pre-tax loss of £40m for the six months ending March 31, 2006.
The airline said the losses were "better than expectations" after fuel costs rose by 49% (£55m) and the late Easter.
He said during the six months, passengers rose by 10.1% to 14.9m, total revenue per seat went up by 0.8% and the network grew to 235 routes using 67 airports.
Andy Harrison, easyJet's ceo, said: "We are encouraged by our first half performance, which is slightly ahead of our expectations at the time of our AGM in February.
"Successful cost reduction and revenue improvements, especially in ancillaries, have largely offset the considerable hike in fuel prices and the effect of Easter moving from the first half in 2005 to the second half in 2006."