CHICAGO: Good days are coming back to Indian travel agents in US thanks to a recent tiff between American Airlines, Orbitz and Expedia.
First American Airlines snapped away from Orbitz, the major booking website for pricing or other issues. In turn, Expedia the other web based booking giant dropped American Airlines from its booking system. American Airlines web based fares for various Indian destinations have been a matter of concern among Indian travel agents. While no other airline has so far published any lower fares on its own web site or any internet booking engine other than contracted fares to consolidators, American Airlines fares with code share flights to all Indian destinations has marginalized Consolidator fares to some extent.
For example, according to Faizan, the web fare Manager at Evia Travel Inc Chicago, American Airlines fare Chicago-Abu Dhabhi-Mumbai-Abu Dhabhi-Chicago in November, sold as American code share flight segments for Etihad Airlines, was slightly lower than Etihad airlines’ own Consolidator fares. Why American Airlines published a fare where all “flights segments” were operated by Etihad was a real concern for many leading Consolidators in US.
But this type of fare has its own problems, says Faizan. He pointed to a case of two passengers who checked this fare on a major booking web site and insisted on that ticket. The ticket was issued for Chicago-Abu Dhabhi-Bangalore-Abu Dhabhi-Chicago sector. The passenger Jahan Ara and daughter did travel to Bangalore on 18 December and they were scheduled to return on 2 Jan. However, Etihad flight Bangalore-Abu Dhabhi was cancelled on 2 Jan. Since the entire ticked was issued on American document (though there was no flying segment on American), passengers were asked to contact American. Here started the real problem. American has not flight operations from Bangalore and due to peak season it was not possible to find alternate flight from India. The passengers would have been stranded but Etihad Chicago office did more than expected. The Etihad Sales team not only confirmed flights for next day but also got a special approval for passengers to travel on American Airlines tickets Etihad flight bookings.
But all passengers are not as lucky as Jahan Ara. There have been many affected cases. According to another leading Consolidator, it is myth that “internet fares” are cheaper than travel agents fares. Internet booking engines are allowed to sell only “published fares”, much higher than contracted bulk fares offered to travel agents through airline appointed consolidators. So nobody so far has ever purchased a cheaper ticket on internet than what is sold by travel agents.
Again, published fares tickets sold on booking engines are mostly non-refundable and governed by restricted conditions. Whereas tickets sold by travel agents are flexible for refund or can be changed with governing penalties. Nadeem Qureshi, the Canada-based owner of a web fares provider to US web based travel agencies however has a different view. He feels people are aware that they are paying more for buying online tickets; however it is only a one time experience. Online ticket purchased is hardly a repeat sale. But for good travel agents, their passengers keep coming back to them. Faizan, however blames “mushrooming of web based booking engines” to the new concept of Metabolic search engines. Many ‘referral sites’ generated by Metabolic search engine refer surfers to some sites which are not actually authorized travel agents.
They are hooked up with some consolidators for ticketing. So buying tickets through a referral website often lands you in unauthorized hands.
Faizan’s view is endorsed by other travel agents. In the beginning there were only 2-3 web based booking engines claiming to offer cheaper airline fares. Now there are so many booking engines vying with each other you simply do not know which one to trust. Majority of such booking engines are not authorized travel agents, but only referral sites. A click on such sites refers to another site, a search begins and surfer gets a fare that really does not exist.
There have been reports that many customers bought tickets for Indian destinations online that were really not reported in airline system and passengers were turned away from airline check-in counters. Since American Airlines fares with code share flights have generated anger among Indian travel agents, the new development is viewed with a sigh of relief.
A.Q. Siddiqui
India Post News Service
