Air France and KLM have suspended access to their joint booking tool for TMCs and travel agencies after detecting a “number” of fraud cases.
In an urgent email sent to trade partners, and seen by BTN Europe, on Monday (12 December), KLM said: “Due to a number of 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 course of the week. We will keep you informed about further developments.”
The AgentConnect.biz website is also used by the sister airlines’ US partner Delta to provide access to NDC-enabled content.
KLM said that agencies needing to service existing bookings should refer to its NDC support options.
Media reports in France suggest that several French travel agencies may have been affected by the issuing of fraudulent tickets via the AgentConnect platform.
Air France said in a statement: “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 per cent of NDC sales made on Air France are made through the interfaces offered by the aggregators or through direct connections put in place by with certain market players. No fraud has been reported in relation to 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. In order 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.”