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Shubhra Tandon

Mumbai, Aug. 18 Travel agents are understood to have agreed to airlines’ proposal to charge a fee directly from the customers for booking air tickets. However, the agents have demanded that this new component be made part of the fare.

This charge will be levied from the consumers in lieu of the five per cent commission that the agents received from the airlines until now. Indian carriers will scrap agents’ commission from November 1, 2008.

“One of our concerns with implementing this new system is the competition that it might trigger with the airlines on pricing. We want this (fees) to be bundled with the fare to ensure that the airlines do not sell tickets at a price lower than that being offered by agents,” Mr Ajay Prakash, National General Secretary of Travel Agents Federation of India, told Business Line.

Travel agents are also very clear that the fees from the customer will not be less than the existing commission (five per cent) paid by the airlines, said Mr Prakash. Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines met with three travel agents’ associations to discuss the issue late last week.

However, there are certain technical issues involved, said Ms Shubhada V. Joshi, Secretary General of Travel Agents Association of India.

“Some legal and technical issues need to be resolved before the implementation of the fees system. Hence, we have decided to form a committee of people with technical and legal knowledge that will meet on August 21 and submit its report by first week of September.”

Indian carriers decided in June this year that they will do away with the travel agents commission from October 1, 2008. Its deadline was extended by a month after discussions between the two parties. The bleeding airlines in India say this is one of the moves to curtail their mounting operating costs.

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