Amadeus It Grou Share News (0P2W)

Shares in Spanish company Amadeus IT Holding, which operates booking systems used by travel agents and airlines, plummeted 9% on Wednesday after German airline Deutsche Lufthansa said it will levy a €16 surcharge on tickets not booked through their website.The move by Lufthansa means that outside bookers must pass on the charge, which would make their systems less competitive, or absorb it and cut into margins.Around 6% of Amadeus' revenue is derived from Lufthansa.Citigroup downgraded its rating on Amadeus to 'neutral' from 'buy' following the news.It said: "Corporate travel accounts for some 50% of Amadeus' Global Distribution Service bookings, but this surcharge is aimed at both retail and corporate travellers. This level of surcharge significantly exceeds Amadeus' average GDS booking fee of €4 and could potentially drive up disintermediation."Global Distrbution Services is the kind of software service offered by Amadeus."Although industry adoption is far from certain, we feel that Lufthansa's initiative has created sufficient uncertainty with respect to Amadeus' key GDS division to downgrade our buy rating on the shares, until we can better assess the industry impact of these changes," said Citi.The bank said it is worried that introduction of similar surcharges by other airlines could potentially hurt Amadeus' GDS business model, offering greater opportunities for meta-search engines offering price comparison services.