Air Sahara sales agents fear job loss

The sales and ground handling agents of Air Sahara are up in arms against the management of Jet Airways, as they think the positioning of Jetlite on the lines of a low cost carrier and cutting down expenses will cost them their jobs.

Air Sahara, which was recently acquired by Jet Airways, has about eight to ten general sales agents in India and about 39 overseas. The GSAs are generally small companies in remote areas who handle marketing & sales and appoint travel agents in different areas. Recently, Air Sahara had also begun to outsource its ground handling services at smaller and remote airports to ground handling agents.

Jet has never needed to outsource its ground handling to GHAs as it manages with its own equipment and personnel. Moreover, it has its own GSAs across the country. Post merger, the Air Sahara GSAs and GHAs do not know where their future lies and whether their services will be required anymore.

According to a GSA, who handles Air Sahara sales in several areas in North India, no one is expecting a fair deal at Jet's hands.

"If nothing positive happens we will be out of business in three months," he rues. "We have had some talks with the Jet management but we are still in a state of confusion. A litigation will be our last resort," he adds.

A series of meetings held this month between the Jet management executives and several Air Sahara GSAs and GHAs have been of little help. "They announced that the ticketing for Jetlite will be only done on the internet. That means anyone who gets a login id and password can sell Jetlite tickets.

Usually, it is we who appoint the travel agents for selling tickets. With such a system in place, who needs GSAs?" said an industry source who was present at the meeting.

"Regarding ground handling, they did say that there would be sharing of resources and personnel but it still left a huge question mark as to whether GHAs would be used," he added.

If Jet plans to discontinue with their services, the losses for these agents, especially GHAs would be huge. "The ground handling equipment is a huge investment. The total cost including the ground handling equipment, maintenance and salaries comes to around Rs 70-80 lakh (Rs 7-8 million)," says an agent who is Air Sahara's GSA and GHA in one of the remote South Indian areas.

"Also in terms of marketing, things such as setting up an office, means an investment of Rs 35-40 lakh (Rs 3.5-4 million). All these expenses will come to nought if Jet decides to discontinue with our services," rues the agent.

So what are Jet's plans? "The selling and distribution expenses of JetLite will largely depend on the business model and the positioning of the new carrier. The agency commission is an issue, which will be tackled at the industry level. We are planning to discuss the issue with industry stakeholders," said a Jet executive.

The executive also said that the marketing arrangements of Air Sahara will stay intact. However, the overlapping of marketing arrangements between the two airlines could have an impact.

"We will evaluate this on a case to case basis as to how these arrangements fit into the overall strategy of Jet," he added.