The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) released an acknowledgement of Turkish Airlines’ letter detailing its new distribution strategy and encourages the airline to comment on the status of its use of Sabre, which is the largest global distribution system (GDS) for travel advisors in the United States. 

Turkish Airlines released a letter in October stating that, as of October 1, a fee of US$24 will be applied to bookings made through GDS EDIFACT channels, which include Amadeus, Travelport, Hitit, Travelsky, Infini and Sirena GDSs. 

However, no fees are added to tickets purchased through TKCONNECT UI, TKCONNECT API, TKCONNECT Aggregators, Quickres, Troya, Websagent, Kolaybilet, the Turkish Airlines website and its mobile app. 

There was no mention of Sabre, which ASTA claims Turkish Airlines has not distributed through since September 1. 

ASTA’s letter states, “Sabre is an indispensable platform that countless U.S. travel agencies rely on to book flights efficiently and provide competitive options for their clients. The lack of clarity as to the status of Turkish Airlines’ negotiations and commitments with Sabre has left many travel agencies uncertain about their future access to the airline’s complete range of offerings.” 

The organization encourages Turkish Airlines to provide more information to the U.S. travel trade and to confirm whether consumer content available on its website is also available across all its GDS channels. 

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