Updated Below
Online Travel Agents Makemytrip, Cleartrip, Yatra are among the over 2500 travel agencies who have decided to boycott the sale of Jet Airways‘ tickets from December 4th, reports Business Standard (via Ixigo Blog). The decision was taken a meeting of six travel agents associations – TAFI, TAAI, IAAI, IATO, ADTOI and ETAA, of which the OTAs are a part. Jet, Kingfisher and Air India stopped paying the 5% commission to travel agents from November 1st, and this is a move to make them change their stance. The travel agents have singled out Jet Airways because it is the market leader, and they’re hoping that if Jet changes its stance, the others will follow suit.
The OTAs, which are members of these organizations, are complying with the decision…at least some of them are: I just checked their sites, and Cleartrip and Yatra are not showing results from Jet, while MakeMyTrip, Expedia and Travelocity are still offering Jet and Jetlite tickets. (Screencaps: MakeMyTrip, Expedia and Travelocity)
We’d mentioned earlier about how OTAs are dealing with this situation differently – while Cleartrip had started charging a booking fee, Travelguru outsourced its search to Meta Search engine Ixigo.
One issue that may have arisen is that the fares that the OTAs would charge would be higher than the fares available on the Airline sites. The solution there lay in the Airlines also charging a booking fee. However this is sorted out, consumers are not left without an option – they can always book flights directly from Jet Airways’ website. What may just decide the outcome, is how many of them book directly.
Update: MakeMyTrip is complying with the guidelines, just hasn’t removed Jet and JetLive from their search. Here’s a screencap. (Thanks for the headsup Hrush)
If Travel Agents/OTAs Don't Allow You To Book A Ticket On Your Preferred Airline, What Would You Do?
- Book My Ticket From The Airlines Site (70.0%, 21 Votes)
- Choose Another Airline (30.0%, 9 Votes)
Total Voters: 30
Loading ...Note: we couldn’t check Via/Flightraja since their flight search wasn’t working. Update: Via was working on Saturday, when we checked it.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
5 Comments until now.
Nikhil, thanks for the post.
I could not put my vote for the question. Because, if I do prefer an airline, I will go to its website. But if I do not, I will book with another airline through the OTA website (as long as ‘most’ airlines are present there). So, in my humble opinion, the real question is whether I usually prefer an airline over others.
It will be interesting to see the results of such a survey.
Hi
I think airlines sites can provide affiliate programs for publishing sites same as other online travel portals. This way these airlines can save some portion of commission as well as able to advertise on different publishing websites. Whereas online travel portals should provide complete tour and travel packages. Like pick-up/drop for hotel to airport and back, hotel, site seeing etc.
Thanks,
Rajeev
Avinash, so you answered the question – you’ll go to the website. :) We’re trying to figure out whether you’ll stop using Cleartrip, MMT, Yatra, or stick to the site you prefer and book another airline.
[...] are at loggerheads – travel agents, including most (though not all) online travel agents (OTA), have blocked market leader Jet Airways. Over the past six months, given the rise in fuel prices and hence Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF), [...]
How is it that most of the world has managed to remove commissions, while we in India are unable to.
The history of commissions was IATA mandated at 9% wherein travel agents provided hand-holding for all services right from advisory on itinerary to getting visa, arranging stay and sight-seeing.
The came agents who starte discounting these commisisons to increase their business. This degenerated to desperate levels where all fo the commisisons were being discounted to certain clients, while travel agents lived on promised Productivity-Linked-Bonuses (PLB) for turnover.
Other incentives are provided besides the PLB by airlines from time-to-time.
In effect Travel agents should worry about Net Earnings, whether it comes in form of commissions or incentives or bonuses. In this context rtestoration of commission is an emotive issue more than a pure economic one.
My personal experience as Manager – Kuwait was that agents getting taste of the transaction fee, prefereed it to the 5% commissions after the initial reservation and resistance. They managed to get increased incentives that were invisible to the corporates and walk-in customers.
Will India follow this line in future, once the emotions settle down ??