Now, travel agents target foreign airlines over commissions

Mumbai: Travel agents have threatened to boycott international airlines from January for non-receipt of commission. They have taken the decision
after their meeting with Singapore Airlines on Wednesday night failed to arrive at any solution. The agents will also take a call on their future course of action on Air India by this week.
State-owned National Aviation Co of India (Nacil), which runs Air India, is supposed to get back to them on Friday.
Rajii Rai, President of Travel Agents’ Association of India (TAAI) told ET, “We will take action against foreign carriers if they don’t bring back the previous practice of paying 5% commission to us.” International carriers such as Lufthansa, Qatar Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air France, United, Continental, KLM and Japan Airlines had stopped paying 5% commission to agents since November. Since then, the agents have been demanding re-introduction of the same.
The agents also want Air India to follow the other domestic carriers which started paying 3% commission. “We have met the civil aviation minister Praful Patel. We understand that the government will ask Air India to give commission to travel agents,” Mr Rai added. Industry sources are, however, not certain on whether the minister would back the agents on the issue. The minister had recently said that the payment of commission is a commercial matter between travel agencies and airlines.
19/12/08 Mithun Roy/Economic Times

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Categories: Foreign Dec 2008, Indian Aviation- In General Dec 2008