Now shell out more on ‘refund’ and ‘reissue’ of airline tickets
Endorsing the IATA committee’s stand Zainuddin K, Business Development Manager of Travel Point in Salalah, said: “The whole exercise is aimed at making the IATA agents survive in the market, as due to unregulated behaviour of some sub-agents it is becoming difficult for us to manage business in current market scenario.” Sub-agents, however, have different point of view about the IATA stand.
They are treating the ‘new strategy’ something which is being imposed on them despite the fact that they are small fry in front of the IATA agents.
“We are nothing in front of them. We depend on them to issue tickets. They get credit points and in turn get several privileges from the airlines. We survive on very little margin being offered by the airlines,” said a sub-agent on the condition of anonymity.
He termed the extra charges on ‘refund’ and ‘reissue’ a cause of clash between travel agents and customers as the charges are bound to be more than the charges declared by the airlines. “If the IATA agents find any wrongdoing by a section of subagents, the burden should not be put on everyone. We have retail customers, while they have corporate and segmented customers. We work like SMEs, they work like corporate. Hence our point of view should have been taken into consideration.”
“Moreover, the sub-agents have been asked to deposit RO 3,000 by April 30 to register as sub-agents and the credit days have been reduced from 15 days to seven days. If the market scenario is bad for them, it is not good for us as well. We should be allowed to survive,” said a sub-agent.
There are around 65 IATA agents and around 600 sub-agents in Oman.