Thread: NCL Dropping Air Commissions - thoughts?

To our TA's -

I'm sure most of you already know that, as of bookings made after the 30th of this month, NCL will no longer pay commissions on air.

Was NCL the last holdout on paying commissions on this portion of your clients' cruise vacations?

To what extent does this trend affect you? Was a significant part of your income from air bookings?

I hardly ever book airfare through the cruise lines - just not a good value for the client. So this won't affect us alot. Overall, most of the time it's a much better deal to book airfare online.

We do use consolidators to purchase airfare for our clients who want us to take care of it for them and we make a slight commission from this. But their prices are still better than the cruise lines.

The airlines don't pay commissions on airfare, so the cruise lines had to add an amount on top of the airfare to cover the commission, plus they have to make money. When you add it all together, they were pricing themselves out of the market. So they had to do something to become more competitive. But I think you'll see travel agents not selling airfare through the cruise line except in very limited situations.

Pete

Good question Sheila,

I rarely use the air through the cruise lines. Flights can't be chosen, and clients don't find out til quite close to sailing. There are extra fees if the client wants to pick their flights. Usually the air is more expensive to begin with anyway.

There are times when I do use the cruiseline air...if there are "free" air offers, which happens with the luxury lines, primarily on the European, Mediterranean, South America, Pacific cruises...+

I am personally not affected much by this ...

It sounds like it will not affect T/A's too much. I do not believe that there is near as much booking of air with the cruiselines as there was 15-20 years ago. I think I have only used their air once in the last 10 years. I did on that one because they were offering a very much reduced rate.

Hardly a ripple effect at this end.
The only ''cruise air'' I've ever used is with the likes of Oceana...''free air''..., thus no impact.
Otherwise, never use cruise-air.

Cheers
Claude

Individuals have SO many more options on booking for themselves than they did 20 (or even 10) years ago today. There ARE deals to be had if you are willing to look for them. Not always, mond you, but quite often.

Air prices are truly on the rise....normally we pay about $200 to go to FL from Manchester, NH...our April flights are almost double that!

Yikes!
When that is the case, you don't dare take a chance on waiting for a list minute special, do you?