By SARAH COLWELL - THE GAZETTE
The Colorado Springs Gazette
This article found at: http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1321041&secid=1
Starting Friday, five major U.S. airlines will start charging travel agents — both online and traditional agents — additional fees to book flights, which many travel agents say they will pass along to customers.
It’s bad news for air travelers — particularly in Colorado Springs — but even worse for travel agents who have seen customers drift away to the Internet to book their tickets directly.
Continental, U.S. Airways, Northwest, United and American airlines will charge travel agents an additional $3.50 for each segment of each ticket booked through the commonly used global distribution system.
The computerized system stores and retrieves information and processes travel bookings. Local travel agents and online travel Web sites use the system to find plane tickets. A nonstop flight has two segments and will cost an additional $7 with the new fee. A roundtrip ticket with one connection will cost an extra $14. Colorado Springs Airport travelers will be especially hard-hit because there are few direct flights out of the Springs. Only domestic flights are affected. The fee is just another blow to travel agents.
The number of Americans using the Internet to book travel increased from 12 million to 64 million between 1998 and 2003, according to the American Society of Travel Agents. The number of retail travel agencies dropped more than 30 percent between 2000 and 2004, according to The New York Times. Independent agencies, those with single locations, suffered the most, with 6,400 going out of business in those four years.
The airlines say the fee will offset higher distribution and administrative expenses. They hope the fee will entice more people to purchase tickets from airline Web sites. “We’re trying to keep our costs low, we have methods that can do that,” said Valerie Wunder of U.S. Airways. “It’s a way to keep costs down, and we are able to pass that savings to the customers. If they go through our distribution method, it saves them money.”
Bob Harrell, airfare specialist with New York-based Harrell Associates, thinks airlines won’t be able to handle the extra Web site traffic. “If the airlines start to get the traffic they are looking for . . . they are going to get buried,” Harrell said. “The reason travel agencies had the business in the first place was because the airlines couldn’t handle offering that service.” Many local travel agents are irate about the new charges, saying it will hurt their business. “It just stinks. The traveling public is going to get hit with the fees because we can’t absorb it because we don’t get paid by them (the airlines),” said Gillian Rosenthal, owner of Travel, Travel in Colorado Springs. “And it’s going to seem like the travel agents are increasing their prices.”
Airlines once paid travel agents a 10 percent commission for every ticket they booked. With the new fee, airlines will now charge them for every ticket issued. “They are looking for any way to add to their bottom line without increasing the price that is published,” said Linda Robison, president of Academy Travel & Tours. “Airlines are getting more money without actually increasing the published price of the fare. In any other business this would be rolled into cost of doing business to sell product. The airlines have found ways to hide extra costs.”
Industry experts agree the surcharge will further hurt travel agents. “Is it (the fee) going to be the demise of travel agencies? No. It’s just another change we have to adapt to,” Robison said. “Most of the traveling public that uses a travel agency in today’s environment is using them for expertise and traveling skills. The bulk of a travel agency business any more is truly consultants now.” “If you go to an airline’s Web site, their objective is not to sell you the lowest fare, and it’s certainly not their objective to direct you to their competitor’s Web site that may have a lower price,” Harrell said. “The honest broker always has a role in this process.”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-4893 or sarah.colwell@gazette.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment