Calcutta High Court, which ordered status quo on reduction of agents commission from 5% to zero by airlines, will hear the matter on November 3With less than a week left for the zero commission regime for travel agents to take off, the agents across the country, who heaved a sigh of relief after the Calcutta High Court ordered a status quo in the matter, are as hopeful as apprehensive. The agents in the city, which is India’s major international gateway, too remain an apprehensive lot as they wait anxiously for November 3, when the matter would come up for hearing at the high court. Three of the country’s biggest air carriers namely Jet Airways, the National Aviation Company of India (NACIL) that runs Air India and Indian, and Kingfisher airlines had earlier deferred the implementation of cut in agents’ commission, from five to zero per cent, from October 1 to November 1 this year. The airlines had asked agents to instead charge passengers for providing them with ticketing and other services.Meanwhile, the High Court’s directive came after an agent from the Travel Agents’ Federation of India (TAFI) challenged the airlines’ decision of zero cut regime earlier this month. An agent from TAFI, on condition of anonymity, also said that the NACIL had tried to move the holiday court twice to get the stay order vacated but to no avail. The lawsuit filed against NACIL & International Air Transport Association (IATA) contends the abolition of agency commission on grounds that IATA Passenger Agency Sales Agreement did not permit airlines to reduce agency commission to zero percent. “It’s an agreement that every travel agent is supposed to sign with IATA,” said a Mumbai-based travel agent. But airlines are still in no mood to relent. Jeetendra Bhargava, executive director and chief of corporate communication at NACIL, called it a ‘routine exercise’ in course of things. “It’s a normal thing to happen and we’ll contest the case,” he said. However Bhargava did not clarify whether NACIL will cut agents’ commission from the stipulated date of November 1. “Our legal team will look into the matter,” he said.According to Shivesh Anand, MD of Pune-based Orient Translinks & Holidays, the agents are not just contesting the five per cent cut as it forms a negligible percent on the gross cost of tickets. “Airlines pay us commission only on their basic fares which they price it as 500 or 600 odd rupees. The rest of the ticket price is made of surcharges. So in effect we get 25 odd rupees on a ticket sold whereas my establishment costs are far more than that,” he said. Anand further said that the airlines could not replicate the American model where agents’ commission has been abolished. “Airlines in India don’t understand that in the US, the infrastructure is far superior to that of India. Their internet penetration is much more and every body has credit cards over there, but that is not the case with India,” he said. “Also in Australia, their national carrier actually spent millions on training agents’ because they realised that it was a far better system than that of cutting agents’ commission,” he added.
