The hostility of US travel managers has forced car rental giant Hertz Corporation to abandon plans for a $2.50 reservation fee all US domestic bookings.
The car company announced the charge on Monday in a notice to American travel managers blaming the need for a fee on the 2proliferation of increasingly complex reservation systems and distribution channels over the past decade.”
It said these had caused increased staff and IT costs.
But the fee was withdrawn two days later with the company citing “some questions from some key accounts.” The charge is officially on hold but there is no implementation date.
Industry experts think that Hertz expected other car rental companies to follow suit. In the even none did.
Amadeus reports 30% rise in income
Amadeus, the GDS on the verge of being sold to venture to two British equity companies, said its income for the year rose by 30%.
The IT provider said that for the first time, sales exceeded 2bn and it made a profit of 208m in 2004 compared to 160m in 2003.
Its number of bookings rose by 7.6% to 454,000,000. This included a major rise of 53.3% in online bookings. These now stood at 42,700,000, 9.7% of the total bookings.
Cinven and CB Partners, the two companies set to take over Amadeus, are still finalising their plans for the Madrid-based GDS.
However the three airline shareholders, Air France, Lufthansa and Iberia, are expected to retain a stake in the new company.
* Amadeus has completed its take over of Optims which supplies IT services to the hotel industry. The GDS has had a stake in the European company since 2003