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Agents Talk Back
ChrisCrossings · November 25, 1999

Note: Last week's column on the future of travel agencies drew a fair number of responses. Here are a few of them, along with the author's comments.

Q: I read your last article with great interest. It is well thought out, insightful, and not emotionally-charged as much of the current hoopla is whenever the travel agency business is faced with another example of the cancerous relationship between agents and the airlines. I have been predicting for years the airlines will eventually cut commissions completely.

When the first round of commissions caps and cuts was announced, the airlines said: "You are a professional. You should charge your customers a fee for your services." Then they turned right around and touted how much the consumer can "save" by booking direct.

Now the carriers are saying: "You are charging service fees so you don't need to take as much commission." The next logical step is to say: "The travel agents don't need to get commissions from the airlines, you can survive on your fees." The average consumer, without having the necessary savvy to know how to shop for the best deal, will end up paying more.

-- Ken Morgan

A: No doubt about it, travelers will have to make some adjustments. If brick-and-mortar agencies disappear, then there's little question that many people -- particularly those of us who don't know their way around the Internet -- will pay higher prices.

I also find it interesting the way airlines have tried to justify their decisions. Their reasons make absolutely no sense to me. Carriers do the same thing with volatile issues such as seat size: They say they're not to blame for shrinking seat pitch. Oh no, passengers made that decision when they made it clear that price would be the most important factor in buying an airline ticket. I've had enough of the doublespeak and faulty logic. Sounds as if you do, too.

Q: Maybe we should limit the number of agencies that are approved to sell travel. Other industries, such as insurance and food brokering, find that limiting the number of representatives is fair to the manufacturer and seller alike. Why didn't these genius [airline] CEOs just decide that instead of approving 30,000 agency locations, to limit how many distribution points they wanted marketing their products? That would be an acceptable solution.

-- Charlene Rust

A: Not a bad idea. I'm sure there's a valid reason for approving all the travel agencies that are out there, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know enough about the economics of travel retailing to tell you why airlines haven't capped the number of agencies that can sell tickets. Having 30,000-some agents sell tickets has its obvious benefits to the carriers, though, in that 1) it creates a vast network of distributors; and 2) it keeps things relatively decentralized, with little chance of the retailers ganging up on the airlines.

Q: Yes, it's possible the travel service business could be seriously damaged. But I prefer to be optimistic that good travel agents can survive. It's all about service. I believe that there is a significant market out there for people who will pay someone who gives them good service. Travel agents have grown up on a rather built-in cash flow system in the ticket business. Now they are going to have to sell service.

Developing customer profiles, learning to identify needs and service them appropriately, building customer loyalty -- these are the new paradigms of the travel service business. I will pay for service when it pays me to buy it. The good will maintain the customer base and find new ways to run their business if they want to. Time for reinvention, guys!

-- Doug Taylor

A: You bring up an interesting point. For every bad airline -- and there are a lot of bad airlines out there -- I'd bet that there are a thousand bad agencies that, as you suggest, probably deserve to go the way of the dodo. I think carriers are doing the dead wood in the agency community a favor and running them out of business. They were serving no one but themselves. It's time for them to look for another line of work.

Q: We have never seen ourselves as de facto employees of the airlines and never trusted them. We work for our clients and provide value, advice and convenience. Always have, even when commissions were much higher.

-- Brian Collings

A: What you think of yourself as and what you are are not the same. Follow along, here. Your loyalty is to whoever is paying your salary. If the airline is paying your salary, your loyalty must be to the airline. That's why I think the commission cuts are a good thing, in one sense. If you're getting paid by the traveler through fees, then no one can question your loyalty. You owe the airlines nothing and can act as a true consultant, without any bias or appearance of bias.

Q: I respectfully disagree, Christopher, when you write that the demise of the travel agent is inevitable. There are numerous "do it yourself" books on the market, but that doesn't protect the readers from their own inexperience. In most cases the result of work done with the help of these books is an inferior product. Likewise, the most sophisticated booking engines on the Internet are owned, at least in part, by the airlines. Do you really trust them to give you the "best" fare (note, I did not say the "cheapest" fare)? Once the feeling of fun and empowerment has passed, and once the growing number of booking engines starts to cause enough confusion, the public will once again look for, and be willing to pay for, sound advice.

-- Stanley Dalnekoff

A: Let me also respectfully disagree with you. There are many users out there who are self-booking perfectly acceptable itineraries without the help of an agent. The suggestion that the agent always knows best implies that the client is dumb and couldn't possibly learn how to make his or her own travel arrangements. Your line about the "best" fare and the confusion created by booking engines is an unfortunate scare tactic that many retailers have used to prevent people from exploring the Internet themselves. Instead of frightening customers, shouldn't agents try to sell them their services instead?

Q: I totally agree that the Internet is a good move for the airlines. But it most certainly is not a good move for consumers! Time and again it has been proven that a travel agent can find a better price than what consumers can find on their own, through the Internet or through the airlines directly. Once the airlines succeed in removing travel agents as their ticket distributors, consumers will be at the mercy of the predatory actions of all the major air carriers.

-- Christina Gee

A: If an agent can find a better price on a ticket, then buying travel from an agent is a no-brainer. But what's the harm in having the Internet as another distribution channel for airline tickets? I see none. I don't see the Internet harming consumers as much as it will harm agents. Why don't we say what we really mean here: The Internet is putting the screws on travel agents.

All of which brings me back to my original point, which is that the unceremoneous dumping of travel agents is setting an awful precedent for how airlines treat people.

This is not about best fare or cheapest fare versus worst fare -- this is about how one industry treats its loyal, hard-working distributors. And about what we can infer from the way it mistreats these agents.

For passengers, I'd say the outlook isn't good.

Christopher Elliott's column appears on Thursdays. All e-mailed questions to ChrisCrossings become property of Ticked.com and may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. You may reach Elliott at christopher@elliott.org. Or visit his home page at http://www.elliott.org.