Travel agents to down shutters on Aug 14 on commission issue

Mumbai, Aug 11 (UNI) Travel agents across the country will down their shutters on August 14, protesting the lukewarm response of the Indian Airlines, both national and private carriers, on the commission issue.

At a meeting held here today three major Associations, including the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) and the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) today unanimously decided on the move, to highlight the dominant role the travel agents played in the country TAFI Praven Chugh told newsmen after the meeting that the representatives will on the same day hold another round of dialogue with the Airline representatives here, to convince them to extend the five per cent comission upto April 30 next year, so that the agents migrate to the new system of transaction costs.

He said that the Federation of Indian Airlines had through a lip sympathy extended the comission for only one month-October as against the demand of the fraternity.

TAAI Secretary General Shubhada Joshi said as many as 2,800 IATA recognised associations and 50,000 unrecognised agencies across the country will participate in the bandh as livelhihood of over seven million people associated with the industry was at stake. The government was earning a revenue of Rs 24 crore as service tax from a turnover of Rs 2,400 crore the travel agents book in a month, she added.

She said that there would be whole lot of confusion that would prevail in the minds of travelers by migrating to transaction cost from commission regime. The Fraternity also wanted the airlines to include the transaction costs into the fare without causing confusion, she added.

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