By Jewel Gopwani

Knight Ridder Newspapers

DETROIT – Travel agents, their trade association and at least one reservation system are challenging Northwest Airlines Inc.’s plans to pass on a new fee to travel agents next week, a move that soured an already tense relationship between airlines and agents.

Northwest and Sabre Travel Network, which runs a reservation system for travel agents, within 24 hours filed dueling lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Minnesota and Texas. The Business Travel Coalition is asking the U.S. Department of Transportation and state attorneys general to look into the new charge Northwest plans to levy on travel agents for every ticket they book through reservation systems such as Sabre. Agents use the system to find the best fares from airlines that pay for their fares to be posted.

The new fee will charge agents $3.75 for one-way tickets and $7.50 for round-trip. Agents worry about making clients pay another fee and fear getting squeezed out of a business that embraces online booking.

Northwest posted a $182 million loss in the quarter ended June 30. The new fees are expected to save the airline $70 million.

Northwest announced the new charge with two other fees for consumers who buy their tickets by phone to the airline or at an airport counter. Those fees – $5 for phone reservations and $10 for counter reservations – start Friday. Northwest will not charge fees for tickets booked through its Web site, www.nwa.com, which will likely point more travelers toward the airline’s least expensive booking option. Northwest sells 16 percent of its tickets online.

The new charge for agents starts Sept. 1. “That is going to add to cost and complexity for everybody involved,” said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, a consumer group that represents business travelers.

In other industry in-fighting, Sabre Travel, hours after Northwest’s announcement, said it would push Northwest fares lower on the list of fares it provides to agents and scale back discounts it established with Northwest through a 2003 contract. It also filed a breach-of-contract suit against Northwest on Tuesday for the new charge to travel agents.

Without knowing about Sabre’s suit, Northwest filed its own breach-of-contract suit against Sabre on Wednesday seeking damages to compensate for any loss of business.

“The bias they have imposed against Northwest flights are denying the flying public a fair and complete choice of both schedules and fares,” Al Lenza, Northwest’s vice president of distribution and e-commerce, said in a written statement.

But one analyst said Northwest is hampering competition.

“This is clearly a move to discourage the use of (global distribution systems), and GDSes are the only true source of complete fare information available,” said Terry Trippler, a Minneapolis -based airline analyst.

Northwest will not charge travel agents a fee if they use a Web site that Northwest has designed for them. But that site, WorldAgent Direct, does not show competitive rates as the reservation systems do.

The American Society of Travel Agents denounced the new charges, saying they will throw a kink into the agents’ routines and the fees they charge travelers.

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“One of the reasons why our clients come to us is because time is valuable to them. When we’re quick and efficient, that’s when we become a service to them,” said Beth Jaskolski, who owns Travelworld in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.

But it will take more time for Jaskolski to check Northwest’s WorldAgent Direct site to avoid the new Northwest fee.

“We’re timing it. It takes probably three times as long,” she said.

The new charge underscores the festering relationship between agents and major airlines, both of which are being pinched by competition and updated technology.

“It’s not a partnership anymore,” Jaskolski said, especially after airlines started trimming and eventually cut out commissions for agents in recent years, making agency fees a must for travel agents to turn a profit on selling airline tickets.

“We’re little guys, and we’re on our own,” she said.