Travel agents and the companies they use to book airline tickets took action Thursday against Northwest Airlines to show their intense opposition to new ticket-selling policies that Northwest unveiled Tuesday.

Effective Sept. 1, the Eagan-based carrier will pay $5 of the $12.50 cost of booking a Northwest ticket through a global distribution system (GDS). Northwest had been paying the $12.50 as a cost of doing business, but now will expect the travel agency or travel Web site to share $7.50 of the cost.

Starting today, Northwest will charge consumers $5 for buying a domestic Northwest ticket through a call center and $10 for buying a ticket at an airport ticket counter.

The airline wants more customers to book tickets directly from its Web site, where no fee is charged. The changes are designed to cut Northwest's ticket-selling costs by $70 million.

The new policies have created a nationwide backlash.

Additional grumbles about NWA here