PARIS — Air France KLM have become the latest airlines to implement a Distribution Surcharge on GDS sales, joining the likes of British Airways and Lufthansa which announced similar moves earlier this year.

The €11 surcharge per one-way segment comes into effect on April 1, 2018 “in order to adapt to market circumstances and to further improve its efficiency”, the airlines said in their Third Quarter 2017 Results. It does not apply to travel agency sales via an NDC connection and to Air France and KLM direct sales channels.

The move aims to incentivize agents to book through Air France KLM’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) channel. “In order to best serve customers, Air France KLM is embracing NDC, and investing in options for travel partners to access, book and sell it,” the report said.

In addition, a complete re-engineering of the Group’s loyalty program, Flying Blue, will be launched on April 1, 2018 with the purpose of stimulating loyalty towards the airlines.

“The strong operating performance achieved by the Group in the third quarter reflects a sustained execution on our strategic priorities, as well as a robust business environment translated into solid traffic and unit revenue trends,” said Jean-Marc Janaillac, CEO of Air France KLM. “We continued to move forward notably with the expansion of our network of strategic alliances and the implementation of a new distribution model. At the same time, we relentlessly pursued our efforts to strengthen our financial structure. All of these accomplishments demonstrate that Air France-KLM is well on track to deliver on Trust Together strategic priorities of growing revenues and improve competitiveness.”