Cheapest Air Tickets

Travel Agents And The Cheapest Air Tickets Around

Part of the case was the fact that the authorities allowed the commission of tickets to be floating. It used to be all wired in where it was 7%. We cut that part out of the case early, and now it's around 10%.

And this will also provide a discipline, because if some -- the travel agents decide they only want to have higher commissions in cheapest air tickets, then the airlines have the freedom to develop some other alternate source of marketing their tickets that would eliminate travel agents or put a pressure on them to sell the cheapest air tickets for less commission than what the 10% is -- or they may want 12%, and that may be too expensive for the airline. So it disciplines travel agents on what they can charge par ticket.

And like anybody else, if you're good at what you do, if you provide a service, you're not going to have a problem. But if you don't provide a service to your clients, they may look for an alternate way to book an airline ticket. But those travel agents who do a good job, provide a good service to their customers, the customers have no reason to go anywhere else to buy a ticket.

The travel agents of America are really upset over what Chairman McKinnon and the CAB have done. Here to explain why is Paul Ruden, special counsel for the American Society of Travel Agents, the trade association of some 10,000 of those agents. Mr. Ruden, Mr. McKinnon says the good travel agents have nothing at all to worry about. Is he wrong?

Well, he is essentially wrong. The marketing case is still pending before the CAB and there may be further proceedings in it. But as a general matter the notion that the good businessman need have nothing to fear, the good marketer may have nothing to fear, fails to account for what we think are the inevitable consequences of what the board is doing.

Well, one of the fundamental elements of the decision was the removal of anti-trust immunity from the agreements that the airlines have. If the immunity is in fact withdrawn, the carriers have indicated -- and we believe them -- that the programs will fail. The program by which accreditation of travel agents takes place through the Air Traffic Conference for domestic agents, and the international for international agents.