LOW-COST airline Go is to pay agents for selling its tickets from February 1 in a scheme which will be unveiled at the ABTA convention today.
The U-turn by the direct-sell carrier, as exclusively revealed in Travel Weekly last week, comes as the British Airways’ subsidiary prepares for increased competition from KLM’s low-cost airline Buzz in the new year.
Go chief executive Barbara Cassani said a secure dedicated area has been set up on the carrier’s Internet site – go-fly.com – for agents to buy tickets.
Agents will be able to gain discounts of £5 return on saver fares and £8 return on flexible tickets. For example, if a saver ticket is advertised as £80 the agent will be able to buy it for £75 but sell it for the full price.
Cassani said: “When we set up we could not afford to be on a global distribution system and deal with all the back-office paperwork with paying commissions. The Internet allows agents to collect commissions themselves and participate in the low-cost market.”
She said the move would not cost the airline any money as agents will not need to telephone the Go call centre to make bookings, thus saving staff time.
Agents currently book Go by telephone and charge around £10 as a service fee.
Go is asking agents to register on the Web site now in order to take advantage of the initiative when it is launched. Cassani estimated 50% of agents had access to the Internet but said that this will grow to almost 100% in a year.