AIR France is to scrap its 9% commission rate from December 1 (Travel Weekly August 30).
The move will bring the carrier into line with rival European carriers British Airways, Lufthansa, SAS, KLM andAlitalia.
The new Air France incentive-based payment structure will be unveiled to agents next month.
General manager UK and Ireland Marc Benedetti said: “We cannot remain with a flat 9% and need an incentive scheme which rewards partners that are really supporting us.”
UK agents are expected to come under a scheme similar to the one implemented by the airline in France last year.
This pays a basic 7%, but retailers can earn up to 11% for improved Air France sales training, marketing and increased bookings. Air France negotiated extensively with French agents before making the move and has promised to consult the UK trade over the next few weeks.
It planned to announce the new commission structure this month before implementing it in November.
However, British Airways’ decision to increase payments to 10% from 7% for agents without corporate deals – to comply with a European Commission ruling laid down in July – has delayed the Air France announcement by a month.
Benedetti said the original plan was to slash the basic rate to 7% from 9% and reinvest the difference in paying incentives to top-selling agents of the airline.
He said the final scheme would be put to agents next month, but the basic rate would still be less than 9%.
“We want to see how to adjust our scheme to match BA and use commission in a better way,” said Benedetti. “We must be competitive with what BA is doing.”
Air France is planning to increase UK revenue by 20% this year by improving services for premium customers. Benedetti refused to say what this meant in monetary terms, but said a new commission scheme would be tailored to increase revenue.
He admitted to studying the format KLM has in place for paying its UK agents and said aspects of this could be used in the new Air France structure. KLM pays 7% basic commission, rising to 10% for increased sales.
Both Lufthansa, which also pays a basic 7%, and KLM said they were studying BA’s new scheme, but did not plan to change payments for agents.