Cap. 434 Art. 13Fee charging criteria to participating carriers.

(1) Any fee charged to a participating carrier by a system vendor shall be non-discriminatory, reasonably structured and reasonably related to the cost of the service provided and used, and shall, in particular, be the same for the same level of service.

(2) The billing for the services of a computerized reservation system shall be sufficiently detailed to allow the participating carriers to see exactly which services have been used and the fees therefor; as a minimum, booking fee bills shall include the following information for each segment:

(i) type of computerized reservation system booking;

(ii) passenger name;

(iii) country;

(iv) IATA/ARC agency identification code;

(v) city-code;

(ix) flight number;

(x) status code (booking status);

(xi) service type (class of service);

(xii) passenger name record (PNR) locator; and

(xiii) booking/cancellation indicator.

(3) The billing information shall be offered on magnetic or other media normally used in the services provided. The fee to be charged for the billing information provided in the form chosen by the carrier shall not exceed the cost of the medium itself together with its transportation costs. A participating air carrier shall be offered the facility of being informed when any booking or transaction is made for which a booking fee may be charged. Where a carrier elects to be so informed, it shall be offered the option of disallowing any such booking or transaction, unless the latter has already been accepted. In the event of such a disallowance, the air carrier shall not be charged for that booking or transaction.

(4) Any fee for equipment rental or other service charged to a subscriber by a system vendor shall be non-discriminatory, reasonably structured and reasonably related to the cost of the service provided and used, and shall, in particular, be the same for the same level of service. Productivity benefits awarded to subscribers by system vendors in the form of discount on rental charges or commission payments shall be deemed to be distribution costs of the system vendors and shall be based on ticketed segments. Without prejudice to paragraph 5 of the Second Schedule, when the system vendor does not know whether a ticket has been issued or not, then that system vendor shall be entitled to rely upon notification of the ticket number from the subscriber. The billing for the services of a computerized reservation system shall be sufficiently detailed to allow subscribers to see exactly which services have been used and what fees have been charged therefor.

(5) A system vendor shall, on request, provide interested parties, including consumers, with details of current procedures, fees and system facilities, including interfaces, editing and display criteria used. The processing of individual data shall be free of charge for consumers to whom that information refers. This provision shall not, however, require a system vendor to disclose proprietary information such as software.

(6) Any changes to fee levels, conditions or facilities offered and the basis therefor shall be communicated to all participating carriers and subscribers on a non-discriminatory basis.