(Finance) – “We are carefully following what the Lufthansaas we do not intend, after years of battle for the interests of the category and the victorious outcome in court, to lower our guard until the travel agents have received the sums due to them”. This is what he states Giuseppe Ciminnisi, president of Fiavet-Confcommercio after having written to the company and its associates, following the publication of the sentence.
The associates Fiavet-Confcommercio they therefore sent a formal warning and formal notice to obtain reimbursement of the higher commission not received, giving a deadline of 15 days for the reimbursement.
As is known, the Court of Cassation, with a ruling dated 16 January, put an end to the affair, which pitted the German company and Fiavet-Confcommercio against one another, initiated to have the illegitimacy of the reduction from 1% to 0.1% of the commission due recognized to travel agents, which Lufthansa had communicated with effect from 1 January 2016.
The pronunciation recognized the nullity of the IATA mandate clause for travel agencies which without limits allows the carrier to unilaterally reduce the commission, essentially eliminating it. The practical effect is the restoration of the commission to 1%, with the company now obliged to return the difference (0.9%) to all travel agencies that sold Lufthansa tickets.
“In recent days I have received compliments from the presidents of other trade associations and many other travel agents and tourism operators – says Giuseppe Ciminnisi – we are obviously happy, but we will not be satisfied until we have what we owe”. “We have received requests from other associations to carry out a joint initiative, but Lufthansa, to whom we wrote immediately after the publication of the Supreme Court ruling, does not want to deal with trade associations, preferring to speak with each travel agency individually”.
“We reassure everyone – concludes the president – that we will ensure that the effects of this sentence are fully respected and we are preparing support initiatives for our members in order to initiate any recovery actions in court, should Lufthansa not reimburse and reinstate in BSP the commission at 1%”.