Travel agents boycott top three airlines on commission issue

New Delhi: The travel agent-airline tiff over withdrawal of 5% commission, paid earlier on sale of tickets, which has now been replaced by a hefty transaction fee has snowballed into a big fight.
On Monday, the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) decided to boycott three airlines — KLM, Air France and NorthWest — for sale of tickets. TAAI also warned Air India and other carriers to get ready for a similar treatment if they did not meet the demands of training agents for the new system and till that happened, defer the zero commission that came into force last Saturday.
"It is a question of our survival. We have demands like, carriers train agents for the new system of transaction charge, and having a remuneration with airlines as well, and not just passengers who'll pay the charge. The three foreign carriers were not agreeing to these points and we have decided to stop sales of their tickets with immediate effect. Other airlines may also suffer a similar fate if they don’t fall in line," said a TAAI official.
Till last Saturday, full service Indian carriers — AI, Jet and Kingfisher — and some foreign carriers used to pay about 5% commission on base fares to agents who account for nearly 85% of all ticket sales in India. Then, as a cost-cutting measure, they stopped this commission from Saturday and agents decided to levy a transaction charge of Rs 350 to Rs 500 for domestic and Rs 1,200 to Rs 10,000 for international tickets.
04/11/08 Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2008