A EUR 500 ticket costs about EUR 21 to sell directly and EUR 41 through a GDS and travel agency
Airlines often compare channels by commission alone. The full cost of selling a ticket also includes card fees, payment operations, distribution fees and the reservation system. When we add these up for one illustrative ticket, selling through a global distribution system (GDS) and a travel agency costs about twice as much as selling on your own website.
| EUR per ticket | Website | NDC, agent | GDS, agency | Online agency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Card fee | 12.65 | 12.65 | 12.65 | 12.65 |
| Payment operations and fraud | 1.81 | 1.81 | 1.81 | 1.81 |
| Metasearch | 3.00 | |||
| GDS fee | 19.32 | 19.32 | ||
| NDC or aggregator technology | 6.50 | |||
| Commission or incentive | 4.00 | 4.00 | 8.00 | |
| Reservation system and airline IT | 3.13 | 3.13 | 3.13 | 3.13 |
| Total | 20.59 | 28.09 | 40.91 | 44.91 |
Our arithmetic on published figures, not tested against an airline's accounts.
What the calculation assumes
The ticket has EUR 400 of fare and carrier surcharge and EUR 100 of tax, with three segments and one GDS booking per segment. Small US dollar amounts are treated as equal to euros.
The card fee uses the 2.53% average that IATA published for 2025. Payment operations and fraud are IATA's 2025 non-fee payment cost, USD 3.8 billion on USD 1.05 trillion of sales, applied pro rata. The GDS fee is EUR 6.44 per booking and the system cost about EUR 1.04 per passenger boarded, both derived from Amadeus's 2025 results. Sabre's equivalents are of a similar size.
Three lines are weaker. The EUR 3 metasearch charge is a placeholder at the midpoint of a dated EUR 0 to 6 range. NDC technology is the midpoint of USD 5 to 8 from a vendor compilation. Commission assumes 1% for agents and 2% for online agencies, based on a 2020 estimate. Your own contracts will differ.
What changes on a regional ticket
Percentage fees fall with the fare, and per-segment fees do not. Applying the same method to a EUR 150 ticket with one segment and EUR 120 of fare gives EUR 8.38 on your website (5.6% of the ticket) and EUR 13.02 through a GDS and travel agency (8.7%). The gap is about EUR 4.60 a ticket.
That sounds small until it is multiplied. If 40,000 tickets a year go through agents on GDS terms, moving a quarter of them to your website is worth about EUR 46,000 a year before any cost of making the move.
Why not move everything to your website
Agents bring passengers and corporate accounts that your website may not reach. American Airlines removed 40% of its fares from GDS channels in April 2023, while also dismantling its corporate sales division and reducing corporate discounts. In July 2024 its chief executive estimated a USD 1.5 billion hit for the 2024 financial year. That figure has no published breakdown and reflects several causes, but it shows what can be lost when agents and corporate buyers are pushed too hard.
The useful exercise is narrower: measure the net cost per booking for each channel in each market, then decide where a move pays for the sales it might lose.
Sources
- IATA, 27 October 2026: USD 24.5 billion payment cost on USD 1.05 trillion of sales; USD 20.7 billion in fees; average 2.53%. The release promotes IATA's own payment products and states no method.
- Amadeus, full-year 2025 results and Sabre, 2025 annual report: fee per booking and per passenger boarded, derived by us. Assumes one booking equals one passenger segment, which neither company defines.
- AltexSoft, September 2025 and AltexSoft, 2020: NDC technology and commission estimates.
- Skift, 2016: metasearch range, dated.
- Business Travel News Europe and Travel Weekly: American Airlines' fare and corporate sales changes. Travel News: the USD 1.5 billion estimate.