Agents are planning to stop working with various airlines. Reason – airlines are planning to scrap the commission fee.
As British Airways and Delta move to a zero commission model from April 1, theDo customers need agents? I do not think so and here’s why:-
battle between travel agents and foreign airlines over the issue of payment of
commissions has intensified with the threat of halting foreign airlines’
operations out of Mumbai and Delhi airports.
Price disadvantage: - Agents charge certain commission which is passed onto customers by airlines. With online booking system, customer can directly book tickets from internet and commission given to agent will be saved by airlines and some percentage of this saving can be passed onto customer by airlines. It is a win-win situation for customers as well as airlines.
No Convenience: - Internet is convenient as customer can book tickets while sitting at home. He needs not to outside, search for ticket agent and haggle with him to get his tickets booked. Customer can save his energy and time by booking tickets on internet. With agent, apart from money, he has to part with his convenience also.
Gap in service expectation and service delivery: - An airline is promoting themselves as world class airline with ‘luxury’ as their middle name and markets themselves as customer friendly airline. Well, customer sitting in dingy agent office, sitting with agent who does not know believes in customer friendliness, can certainly feel the gap in service expectation and service delivery which is not in the interest of airline. Customers also want to avoid such bad experiences.
Agents were required in old world of business as airlines wanted to reach out to customers in every nook and corner. Now internet has reached in far flung areas. Agents were reliable and responsive but so is internet. Agents need to look at the ways where in they can add value to customers and airlines. They need to lead the industry by helping them in doing more personalized marketing to customers.
They need to run or else their end is near.
by Ramesh , on March 31, 2009 4:27 PM
I don't entirely agree Adesh. For simple ticketing, especially domestic, an agent is perhaps not necessary and you can book on the net. International ticketing is extremely complex. There are many fare classes with specific conditions which can never be intelligible to the average flier. Many airlines need to be compared and its actually possible to get a cheaper fare through a longer routing. Visas and other formalities are also involved. I am a very frequent oveseas traveller and could never imagine managing this without an agent - so much so that comapnies have dedicated agents sitting inside their own offices.
by Adesh Sidhu , on March 31, 2009 9:27 PM
Hey Ramesh,
The point here is for how long. They need to think more than providing tickets. At present they are best described as middle man and their value addition to businesses is decreasing by each passing day.
Travel agents are sitting on huge amount of itinerary data and they can use it to make life of customers easy by providing information about travel destination. I won't mind receiving an email or SMS about weather update of my destination city/country one day prior to my travel. This will help in planning my trip better.
Small things but will go a long way in building relationship.
Keep writing.