The airline remains committed to GDS distribution, the corporate travel market and moves to make life even easier for Travel Management Companies.

easyJet, Europe's leading low-fares airline, has unveiled plans to reduce its point of sale (POS) fee on bookings made through Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and other approved third party distribution channels connected to its Application Programming Interface (API). The fee, which has up to now been based on a variable fee of up to £5 (€7.50) per seat (depending on the number of seats booked), will now be set at a fixed fee of £3.30 (€4) per seat.

Jerry Dunn, easyJet Distribution Development Manager, said:

"In contrast to the recent action taken by Ryanair to cancel bookings made by travel agencies through screen scraping, easyJet is providing an alternative legitimate booking channel for business travel agencies, while maintaining a firm stance against unlicensed screen scraping. Most screen scraping systems are voluntarily switching off screen scraping to move to the API, while any that refuse to do so will face legal and technical action against them."

easyJet remains an extremely attractive airline for business travellers, who can benefit from our low fares with care and convenience across our extensive route network flying to major city airports rather than out of town airfields. This is especially important in today's challenging economy."

Since launching GDS distribution, easyJet has engaged with many major TMCs and Corporates as well as their representative bodies and has decided to take this action as a result of listening to the opinions of all parties involved. easyJet expects companies to respond by ensuring that bookings are only made in licensed booking systems or directly at easyJet.com. In particular there has been full consultation with the Institute of Travel Management (ITM) in the UK.

Caroline Strachan, ITM Chairman, said:

"ITM was pleased to discuss the views of the buyer community on this subject with easyJet. Whilst we would have liked to have seen POS fees removed entirely, easyJet is to be applauded for taking the time to consult with our members. We would hope that any business travel supplier would follow suit when making a decision with a substantial impact on travel management costs."