TAFI voices out over unethical policies of Air India, highlights not opening its Rome, Toronto, Vancouver flights to agents

Reacting over a tweet on Twitter by Air India, “Passengers travelling on AI flights to Rome, Toronto & Vancouver from India may kindly note that booking for these flights will not be available through Travel Agencies based in India. Bookings can be made only through AI Website, Mobile App, Call Centre & Booking Offices.” TAFI, one of the country’s largest travel associations, has labelled it as a restrictive and destructive policy of Air India.

Pradip Lulla, President of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) stated that there seems to be a dichotomy of their policy and appears to be a misuse of their commercial authority.

According to the association, Air India has completely ignored the support that Indian Travel Agents have been offering to Air India on its weak sectors to help increase the seat factor percentage. The Trade has been patronising the National Carrier but it seems it’s a more one-sided affair where the Travel Agent keeps supporting Air India and Air India officers misuse this support and take the Travel Agent for granted.

While the travel agents are clueless about the reasons behind such a decision, it is to be noted that International Carriers maximise the use of the Indian Travel Agent and fill their flights to a high level of seat factor percentage and add to their Revenue Generation through this distribution through all the GDS suppliers, they seemed to have understood the advantages of the Indian Travel Agent and to work closely with them. The association also wanted to know who is monitoring seats not sold in these sectors and what action is being initiated against the officers who are making the wrong policy that hurts the revenue generation of Air India.

“The Air India management should remember that they are dealing with bonafide IATA agents. This is a highly myopic attitude for a Commercial Airline, no wonder they face such losses,” expressed Lulla.