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Travel agents disfavour zero commission

MUMBAI: The stand-off between airlines and travel agents on the issue of payment of commission has reached a critical stage with several agent bodies deciding not to conduct transactions for Jet Airways.

A decision was taken last week by major travel trade associations to address the issue which was precipitated by some airlines like Air India, Indian Airlines, Kingfisher and Jet to unilaterally abolish agency commission from November 1.

The travel associations had decided to withdraw support to Kingfisher and Jet but on December 4 but have decided to withdraw their boycott of Kingfisher.

The decision to withdraw support to Jet Airways (including Jet Lite) still stands. “This will continue till Jet Airways chooses to hold a meaningful discussion to address agents’ concerns,” said a statement from Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), adding that the elimination of commissions would spell the “the death-knell for close to 30 per cent of travel agents in the country and trigger mass unemployment.”

Other than TAAI, several other associations representing more than 90 per cent of Indian travel agents have teamed up.

Anoop Kanuga, Chairman, TAAI, Western Region, told The Hindu that “the commission to travel agents went down from 9 per cent to 7 per cent and in 2004 it has been 5 per cent and now the decision to go to zero commission. We had even considered a transaction fee model across the country but that did not work out because the airlines take 40-45 days to reimburse the agents.”

For international travel, only about 2-4 per cent Indians book tickets through the Internet but for domestic travel, this could be as high as 15 per cent.

Mr. Kanuga said the boycott has worked well so far but the numbers are not in yet. “The boycott will certainly have an impact on any airline and we will wait and watch.”

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