Travel agents send red roses to Kingfisher Airlines

Jet Airways, Kingfisher

After unsuccessfully wooing Jet Airways with samosas to reconsider cutting commission paid to them, travel agents in Mumbai sent flowers to its alliance partner, Kingfisher Airlines, on Tuesday.

On November 11, around 517 travel agents sent red roses to the Kingfisher office at Nariman point. Rajesh Rateria, owner of Cirrus Travels, Fort, said, "We respect Dr Vijay Mallya and wanted to remind him of the promise he had made to us in the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) convention in 2006, adding that at the convention, Dr Mallya had stated, 'Respect your trade partners; respect your travel agents.'

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The agents were protesting against the withdrawal of commissions by airlines to travel agents from November 1. Moreover, the airlines have asked the agents who sell 85% of the airline tickets, to charge a transaction fee from the customers. Airlines like Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher are already levying a transaction fee from November 1 based on destination and class in the range of Rs350 to Rs10,000. However the travel agents find this unacceptable. "When we are doing a service to the airlines by selling their tickets, why should we charge the passenger," asked an agent.

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The agents also say that during the financial crisis, airlines should work with them, not against them. "We can pull them out of the red by promoting their airlines' tickets to passengers. They should rely on distributors (agents) to bail them out," said a member of TAFI.

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"However if they refuse, we will stop promoting them," he said.

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