India’s Agents Plan Further Actions Against Airline Policies

India’s travel agents are following up their highly effective one-day protest last month with a host of other activities aimed at engaging the airlines on commission and fare issues.

The “no ticketing” protest on May 7 against commission rollbacks, fare disparities and other concerns involved 3,000 travel agents and resulted in a 45% drop in airline ticket sales for the day.

“May 7 was a rallying point and gave agents the confidence that they could act unitedly,” said Ajay Prakash, chief executive of Mumbai-based Nomad Travels. (See: India’s Agents Use Activist Tactics to Fight Airlines)

Positive outcome
On May 24, agents demonstrated at a meeting of Jet Airways in Mumbai, according to Prakash. Subsequently an agent delegation was invited to meet Naresh Goyal, chairman of Jet Airways.

At the meeting, Goyal agreed to maintain parity between fares on the Jet website and GDS fares. Another meeting was scheduled to address the issue of agency commissions, Prakash said.

Mumbai-based Jet Airways, founded in 1993, serves 50 destinations within India and 20 international destinations. The airline currently pays agents 1% commission.

Ongoing actions
In other actions, agents are currently involved in several court cases based on Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees a “Right to Livelihood,” Prakash said.

India’s agents plan still more actions, Prakash said. They include:

•     Getting agents “to vote with their feet” by booking away from airlines that don’t pay any commissions.

•    Lobbying the government “to implement its own orders, which explicitly state that ‘tariff,’ among other things, includes commission payable to cargo and travel agents.”

•    Continuing talks with individual airlines.

More strikes ahead?
There are also calls for a nationwide strike. However, Prakash said, “that’s some way off and will need the involvement and support of the two major agent associations [the Travel Agents Federation of India and the Travel Agents Association of India].”

A Facebook page called Jago Re, which roughly translates to Wake Up, has sprung up, and agents across India are communicating through this, regardless of their association affiliation, Prakash added.

“What’s remarkable is that these actions are being done outside the ambit of the two major agent associations,” he said.