Base travel agency commission on QF international tickets to drop from 5% to 1% in July 2022.
Qantas has just issued a market update confirming it will “lower front-end commissions paid to travel agents on international tickets from 5 per cent to 1 per cent”.
The change will take effect from July 2022, with the carrier saying this will give “time for the industry to adapt”.
“Travel agents remain an important partner and Qantas will work with them on broader revenue opportunities, particularly through technology,” the carrier insisted.
The company said that assuming there are no further lockdowns or significant domestic travel restrictions it expects to be “underlying EBITDA positive” in the range of $400 to $450 million for the 2021 financial year. However the statutory pre-tax result for the year is expected to be a $2 billion loss including costs associated with previously announced redundancies, aircraft write-downs and non-cash depreciation charges.
Domestic leisure demand is strong, and while the Group has revised its expectations for the return of a significant level of international flying until 19 December (except trans-Tasman), the “net cash cost of carrying the international division has improved, with the two-way trans-Tasman travel bubble and strong performance from Freight, dropping from $5 million per week to around $3 million”.
CEO Alan Joyce said “we have a long way still to go in this recovery, but it does feel like we’re slowly starting to turn the corner”.
More details in today’s issue of Travel Daily.