Tickets from airline office to cost less

From tomorrow, air passengers will find their tickets Rs 350-Rs 10,000 cheaper if they buy them from the airline office or website rather than through travel agents.

Full-service carriers Jet Airways, Kingfisher and Air India have told the travel agents that they would not levy the transaction fee on air tickets from tomorrow. This was decided in a meeting held today between the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) and the executives of the three airlines.

Transaction fee, ranging between Rs 350 and Rs 10,000, is to be levied by the travel agents in lieu of the 5 per cent commission that the airlines have stopped giving them since November 1, 2008. In all, 16 carriers including the three full-service carriers have shifted to the zero-commission mode.

“The airlines have now decided to go back on their word of levying the transaction fee on the air tickets. This means that only the agents can levy the transaction fee now, though we have not decided whether we will go ahead with it because that would steer customers away from us,” said Ajay Prakash, General Secretary, TAFI.

Even though the transaction fee was the airlines’ proposal to the travel agents, the agents in turn had asked the airlines to levy a similar fee so that there would be a level playing field in terms of pricing. “Travel agents account for 85 per cent of the total airline ticket sales for these full-service carriers. It is true that the levying of transaction fee would give the airlines additional revenue while saving on commission. But if they do not levy this fees it will turn the customer sentiments against us, which is why we had proposed this,” said Prakash.

The decision of the airlines not to pay commission might leave 1 million people employed with over 2,000 IATA affiliated travel agencies without jobs.