Delta to Be First Airline to Cap Agent Commissions : Travel: Carrier will pay a maximum of $50 on domestic tickets. Agencies say move hits them hard.

Delta Air Lines, in a move to cut costs at the expense of the nation’s travel agents, said Thursday that it will immediately cap commissions paid to agents for writing domestic tickets.

The nation’s third-largest carrier is the first major U.S. airline to abandon the conventional 10% commission paid to agents for booking tickets. Atlanta-based Delta, like most big airlines, relies on agents to ticket roughly eight of every 10 passengers.

The news hit ticket agents like a bombshell, and some suggested the industry might try to charge the public “transaction fees” to make up the difference.

“I’m flabbergasted,” said Jim Roberts, president of Uniglobe Regency Travel in Ontario. “This is going to be a significant (financial) hit for us.”

Jeanne Epping, chairman of the American Society of Travel Agents, said in a statement that she was “shocked and outraged” by the change, which she warned would “hurt the bottom-line profitability of ASTA members across the country.”

The plan calls for Delta to pay a maximum $50 commission for a round-trip domestic ticket with a base fare of more than $500, and $25 for a one-way ticket with a base fare in excess of $250. The cap will kick in on about 20% of the tickets written by agents, the airline estimated.

The agents would hurt even more if Delta’s maneuver were to spread. The biggest U.S. airline, United, declined comment on whether it is pondering such a move.

Delta is trying to shed $2 billion in annual operating costs by mid-1997 to generate sustained profits.

Last fall Delta also cut agents’ commissions on its international flights to 8% from 10%.