Air France-KLM Suspend Booking Tools Over Fraud Cases

After detecting a "number" of fraud cases, Air France and KLM have suspended access to their joint booking tool for TMCs and travel agencies.

On Monday, December 12th, KLM sent an email to business partners saying, “Due to several fraud cases with the Agent Booking Tool (ABT), we have temporarily stopped access to the ABT.

“The booking tile is therefore no longer visible on AgentConnect.biz. The ABT is expected to become available again in the coming week. We will keep you informed about further developments.”

According to KLM, airlines should use the National Data Centre (NDC) platform if they need to service existing reservations. The sister airlines' US partner Delta also uses the NDC platform, despite allegations in France that it may have been used to issue fake tickets.

In a statement, Air France stated, “it should be noted that these frauds are in no way related to the NDC content or process itself. In fact, to date, more than 98 percent of NDC sales made on Air France are made through the interfaces offered by the aggregators or through direct connections put in place by certain market players. No fraud has been reported about these NDC issuances since 2018.

“On the other hand, on the volume of NDC sales made via the AgentConnect portal, however, Air France deplores a few cases of fraudulent issuances using different methods, including a phishing email about which we alerted all travel agencies on Wednesday, December 7, as well as various other methods of access code theft.

“To date, Air France confirms that several travel agencies in the French market have been affected by this fraud. To avoid any further fraudulent use to the detriment of one of its travel agency partners, Air France has decided to suspend access to the sales engine on its AgentConnect portal until further notice.”

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