Unity call on protection

ADELAIDE agency Axis Travel has called for a unified approach to consumer protections, arguing against fragmented schemes among competing groups.

Responding to TravelManagers’ warning that recent media attention on corporate collapses and agent fraud could damage the industry ( TD yesterday), Axis director and manager Max Najar said additional attention was needed on credit card purchases.

“Our industry should not be disjointed,” Najar said.

“A more unified approach on what is on offer should be mandatory when joining a network or home-based consortium so that absolute credibility is reinforced to consumers from our industry.

“A fragmented approach with one network or company doing one thing and another doing another thing is bad business logic,” he said.

While applauding initiatives like TravelManagers’ audited protection scheme, Najar said consumers were still vulnerable to corporate collapses where credit cards had been used to make direct transactions.

“Consider that many pax use credit card charge forms in the equation to pay most air tickets and now even cruises etc, and that the financial transaction is legally between pax and supplier,” he said.

“So if the supplier goes to the wall, then the pax can be very upset that their card was passed on to the supplier/airline by the agency... and they lose it all.”

Najar said systems like the Book Safe scheme provided to Express Travel Group agents and the AFTA Chargeback Scheme (ACS) were important, along with International Passenger Protection (IPP) Scheduled Airline Failure insurance.

“Adding insurances to an agency cost structure can be very expensive, but it gives pax coverage/protection with certain limitations/conditions,” he said.