With the modernisation of air ticket booking, a number of such intermediary software-based GDS companies have developed worldwide.

In this system, airline tickets are booked using software of GDS companies, which charge money from the airlines for the service. And air travel of passengers with such ticket booking often remains unchecked.

Taking advantage of this, a section of officials of GDS firms prompt travel agencies to give more ticket booking than the actual number of passengers to realise extra money from the airlines and share it among them, sources said.

The foul play came to light when Gulf Air recently conducted an investigation into its ticket reservation from Bangladesh. The probe found that a GDS company made thousands of false reservation of tickets of the airline. The airline suffered a loss of $1.5 lakh due to such false ticket booking in the last six months.

In one case, a travel agency gave booking for 30,000 tickets in one month but none travelled against those.

Gulf Air detected that 44 travel agencies in Bangladesh were involved in this malpractice. It blacklisted them and snapped ticket booking links with them.

The probe report said the local travel agencies used to make false reservations in connivance with a Hong Kong-based GDS company-- Galileo.

The local Galileo office however denied any involvement in false reservation. "The Gulf Air never gave us any reminder of the false reservation," said Tofail Ibn Solaiman, a senior sales manager.

He said Galileo is giving booking to all airlines including Gulf Air.

He also said, "We do not have any dispute with Gulf Air but the airline might have some problems with travel agents."

When contacted, Secretary General of the Association of Travel Agents in Bangladesh (Atab) Ghulam Mostafa admitted the incidents of fake reservation of tickets. In travel agency business, there is a trend of pocketing crores of taka through such illegal means, he said.

He blamed GDS companies of dishing out the idea of false booking of air tickets and polluting the atmosphere in travel agency business. He demanded punishment to both the travel agencies and GDS companies for this.

The Atab leader claimed that not more than 5-7 per cent of travel agencies are involved in such illegal activities.

Some sources said the trend of fake ticket booking emanated from tough competition among major GDS companies to capture a big air travel market in Bangladesh, having 2.5 million passengers a year.

And the competition is going to intensify as the market is expanding every year.

At least four major GDS companies are now operating in Bangladesh. Besides Galileo, the other three are Singapore-based Abacus, Amadeus of Germany and US-based Worldsper. Of the air travel market in the country, Galileo holds 45 per cent, Amadeus 25 per cent, Abacus 20 per cent and Worldsper 10 per cent.

False reservation of tickets has become a major cause of worry for the airlines operating in Bangladesh, the sources said.