Varying ticket rates leave fliers puzzled

Kolkata: Fliers queuing up to buy air tickets were left thoroughly confused as prices of tickets varied from one travel agent to another on Sunday.
Airlines withdrew their commissions to agents and introduced a transaction fee to be charged from passengers. The rate varied from one agent to another, leaving passengers baffled. Confusion prevailed even at the airline counters with some charging the fee and others not.
Airlines have withdrawn their 5% commission to travel agents and introduced a transaction fee from November 1. It varies from sector to sector, depending on the class in which a passenger is travelling. For the domestic sector, passengers have to pay Rs 350 per economy class ticket and Rs 500 for business class. In the international sector, the transaction fee is Rs 2,500 for economy, Rs 5,000 for business class and Rs 10,000 for first class. However, the figures for South East Asia and the Middle-East is around Rs 1,000 less for each slab. Airlines clarified that these rates were the maximum that could be charged.
"Passengers were confused. For a ticket worth Rs 10,000, one travel agent was charging Rs 500 as transaction fee, another Rs 350 and yet another was charging nothing," said Anil Punjabi, the eastern regional chairman of Travel Agents’ Federation of India. Even when airlines like Jet Airways and Singapore Airlines are charging transaction fee, Quatar and MDLR are yet to introduce it.
Airline officials, however, defended their action. A senior Jet Airways official from Mumbai said there’s no confusion because the transaction fee was not uniform, but indicative.
03/11/08 Arpit Basu/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2008