After Jet, agents set to take on Kingfisher

Mumbai: This winter may see a battle of nerves between the travel agents and Indian carriers. After boycotting the country’s largest-private carrier, Jet Airways, the agents are gearing up to stop selling tickets of the second-biggest—Kingfisher Airlines. They may stop selling Kingfisher Airlines tickets from December 15.
Travel Agents’ Association of India (TAAI) president Rajji Rai told ET, “The six major bodies of travel agents will meet Monday to take the final decision. We will subsequently inform our members.” The agents account for 85% of tickets sold in India. The remaining 15% are sold directly by the carriers. There are around one crore travel agents in India.
Most airlines did away with the 5% commission on November 1, forcing agents to shift to a fixed-transaction fee for every ticket purchased. However, the fixed transaction fee, which was in the range of Rs 350 to Rs 2,500 a ticket depending on the class and routes, had also been discontinued from December.
The agents had stopped selling Jet Airways’ tickets from December 4 in a bid to mount pressure on the airline to reintroduce 5% commission the ticket sale. “Resultantly, Jet Airways’ tickets sale drop by 70% in the past one week and its business will see a bigger impact during the peak season,” Mr Rai added.
However, airlines are in no mood to succumb to the pressure. A senior Jet Airways official said that the company is working on to sell tickets on its own. It is widening its network of call centres and also analysing the option of putting booking tables in big corporate houses.
08/12/08 Mithun Roy/Economic Times

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Categories: Kingfisher Dec 2008