Finnair to stop paying sales commissions to travel agencies

Finnair has made a preliminary decision to move to a zero commission structure with travel agencies in Finland as of the beginning of September this year. In accordance with what has been common practice in the United States for years and in the Nordic States as of the start of this year, Finnair will stop paying commissions to Finnish travel agencies for Finnair ticketing and tickets sold by the agencies as of September 1, 2003.

This affects all sales on Finnair documents. At the moment, a five percent sales commission is paid on scheduled domestic tickets and a seven percent commission on scheduled international tickets. In the future, Finnair, like travel agencies, will charge a separate fee on booking and ticketing in its own sales offices.

From the start of September, Finnair will also no longer provide paper versions of its domestic serial tickets, but will continue to develop the electronic serial ticket MultiFLYe.

The airline will also gradually phase out its own ticketing system used by its own offices as well as travel agencies in Finland and Estonia. Finnair's own  system will be replaced by the Amadeus Central Ticketing system. At the same time, separate paper tickets will be gradually completely phased out in domestic traffic.