AA's "Not Made Here" ERHF

American Airlines announces an “External Res Handling Fee”:

Effective April 12, 2007, AA Reservations will collect the External Reservation Handling Fee (ERHF) for the service of assigning or changing seat assignments for tickets purchased through non-AA locations. This fee will only apply for those customers who purchase tickets through a ticketing source other than AA or AA.com. It is very similar to the fee we currently charge for itinerary changes. If the customer does not agree to pay this fee, AA Reservations Agents will refer the customer to AA.com, AA IVR (Interactive Voice Response) Systems, or to the original booking source for assistance with seat requests.

Here’s what FMV loves about this announcement:

1) They post this notice on April 10th to be effective April 12th. No foolin’ around there.

2) Not only do they name it awkwardly – THEY CREATE A FLAA (“Four Letter Airline Acronym”) out of it!!

We’re surprised they went with a FLAA instead of the more common “TLA” (“Three Letter Acronym”). You just can’t work with airlines without using these wherever possible. Try this the next time you call AA:

“Will I get charged a ERHF on my ORD / BOS PNR booked thru CWT on a GDS if the ATO messed up my SSR request due to an IRROP and AA.com won’t accept multiple FOP from my POS??”

You simply can’t make this stuff up.

3) They called it an “External Res Handling Fee”?? How weird is that? Why not simply call it a “Seat Assignment Fee” or a “Seat Change Fee”??

This is the crux of the matter - Because they really wanted to highlight the fact you are enduring all of this pain because you went outside of the family!! We also love how they also give you a not-so-subtle reminder that “It is very similar to the fee we currently charge for itinerary changes”

In a way – we can’t help but wonder if agents really brought this on themselves.

Agents (and to a more public degree the GDS’s) keep pointing out that they service the business traveler that yield the higher-revenue tickets. Therefore, the agents’ clientele and service makes all of the higher GDS costs, overrides, “marketing funds” (and other payments the airlines shell out) worth it. FMV distinctly remembers an agency utter the phrase “we service the customer on behalf of the airlines so it’s worth the costs”.

It’s seems to us that American is now saying “Great – thanks for that. Oh, but you can’t have it both ways”. It’s clear the agencies cost more, which MAY be OK if those agencies also take care of their customers. But this model breaks down if the airlines have to pay the agencies more AND also have to shoulder the costs of servicing them. Granted, it does pose tricky customer service issues for the individual flyer – and that’s where we think AA’s real challenge lies.

The traveller is pretty much oblivious to the battle raging between the airline and agency – but still gets caught in the crossfire. AA wants the customer to be mad at the agency - not the AAirline. Call center agents will probably have trouble framing this issue for customers.

And hence the reason why Platinum status members are exempt from the ERHF.