Hi Roger and List Members,
I have to agree wholeheartedly and doing so as a former owner of two travel
agencies. There are many of the traveling public who realize and appreciate
the fact that .....should something go awry on a trip you can return to 'face'
the same person who planned or sold the travel arrangements in question. The
same situation cannot be duplicated when you purchase from one of the majors
(via phone or internet). You show up at the ticket counter to deal with
someone who'll swear up and down that "they don't know who that employee
was..and why they 'did' what they may have done". No travel agent can hide
behind such a charade. (can we say 'Academy Award performances!')
I suggest this one, be it extreme solution, to get the attention of the
majors (not mention re-think their commission strategy) although most of the
high-profile travel agencies would never entertain the thought (for short of
balls and long on avarice). Across the board and unilaterally, all travel
agents in the US and Canada should completely shut down for a single week. The
majors would be swamped and beleaguered in such a way that their
passenger/customer satisfactory levels would would sink to abysmal and
vitually irreversible depths! There's no way in a weeks time they would be
able to handle such devastation. I say Canada and the US because the majors
dare not apply this practice in lesser regulated countries around the
globe...visit an airline counter in one of these countries and you'll
understand why.
Many of us have seen some of the horrid lines inside some terminals,
compound those lines with the 80% or so who purchase via travel agents and see
what happens....they'll have to recall troops from Afghanistan to quell the
insurrections at ticket counters! (not to mention the shrinks necessary to
deal with mentally frayed counter personnel).
But then again, like I said, the larger corporate agencies who are surely
immune from this latest round of insults from the majors..would never comply
with such a counterattack!
But that's my 2¢'s worth
Greg
Roger Chung-Wee wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:19:55 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >At 10:29 PM 3/25/2002 +0000, Roger Chung-Wee wrote:
> >>On Mon, 25 Mar 2002 15:11:01 -0500, you wrote:
> >>
> >>Let's paint a little scenario. Say that you work for a retailer - it
> >>could be in insurance, finance, travel - doesn't matter. It's at the
> >>month-end.
> >>
> >>
> >>"But could they possibly field all those direct customers?" "Don't be
> >>daft. Even with increased internet sales, the number of reservations
> >>agents - and all the associated expenses like wages, insurance,
> >>accommodation, rent, electricity, etc - would have to increase hugely,
> >>thus more than wiping out any benefits from not paying commissions."
> >
> >Interesting supposition. I'd say the airlines already have excess capacity
> >in call centers; we all have heard of airline call centers that have been
> >shuttered. You're saying that it'll be prohibitively expensive for the
> >airlines to ramp back up to take the call volumes they'd have to take?
> >
> >Wow those airlines sure are stupid.
> >
> You are really not getting it, thinking as a customer but not knowing
> the bigger picture The travel agents sell some 75 percent of most of
> the majors' seats, and you can reckon on at least 15 percent sold by
> other means, eg airlines' own web sites, other airlines. That leaves
> at most 10 percent sold directly by the airlines. Even if internet
> sales were to double, there is no way that any airline can ramp up by
> five or six hundred percent to handle direct calls. And bear in mind
> that it isn't just a matter of making bookings: there's a whole bunch
> of other stuff that happens behind the scenes, eg refunds and payments
> which the airline will have to handle. I'd hate to think how much
> effort it will need to handle lots more payments directly instead of
> the current BSP system which swipes money owed to airlines from
> agents' bank accounts every month.
> --
> Visit Caribbean Aviation:
> http://www.caribbeanaviation.com/
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