Travel agents to boycott European airlines

The Travel Agents Federation of India has threatened to stop selling tickets of major European airlines from June 26 if the second round of talks with them on June 22 to discuss the issue of slash in the agents' ticket commission fail.

The 800-member strong TAFI would hold an internal emergency meeting on June 17 in Mumbai to chalk out their strategy. European carriers had last week stated that that plan to slash agents' commission to five per cent the current seven per cent.

TAFI managing committee member Tarakeshwar Singh told PTI in Kolkata on Monday that British Airways, Swiss Air, Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and KLM had unilaterally decided to cut down the ticket commission from September on the grounds of creating parity with European markets. "But they still continue to pay the old commission rates in many Far-East countries. Why should they treat India at par with the European markets then?" he asked.

The nearly 33 per cent slash in commission rate would force agents to retrench staff and compromise on the standard of services provided resulting in large-scale unemployment in the travel industry, Singh said.

TAFI had agreed to the foreign airlines' demand to cut down the commission from nine per cent to seven per cent two years back in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks but has put its foot down this time fearing massive retrenchment in the industry.

TAFI chairman for the Eastern Chapter, Anil Punjabi, said the nationwide strike would not affect 'like-minded' Eastern airlines like Singapore Airlines, Thai, Royal Brunei, Druk, Air Nippon and Bangladesh Biman, which had not cut down on the commission charges.

Pointing out that the European airlines' unilateral move was a violation of the Apex Promotion Joint Council's directives as well as the International Association of Tour

Agents handbook, Panjabi said the post-September 11 slash had resulted in an annual loss of about Rs 300,000 per agent.

"This time around the figure is likely to go up to Rs 500,000 per agent per year. This is a mammoth volume in terms of the gross annual earnings. The slash is also going to result in a loss of 35 per cent revenue to the government," he added.

TAFI's other demands included commission on net value of the ticket, 50 per cent share in case of cancellations or no show of the passenger, no direct corporate deal and no incentive to corporates, stalling of publication of fares on Internet and two per cent reimbursement to agents as infrastructure and promotional expenses.