Air travel agents not to sell tickets on Tue
ARVIND TENGSE, MADGAO | 06 May 2013 19:30 IST
Travel agents all over India will down their shutters tomorrow (Tuesday) to protest against the withdrawal of six per cent transaction fee in air tickets by all the airlines.
The fee withdrawal is the result of the Supreme Court order.
Travel agents from Goa will also participate in the nationwide bandh.
Agents expect the civil aviation ministry to work out a solution, following the token strike.
A meeting with representatives of airlines and agents' association is scheduled in Delhi tomorrow (Tuesday).
However, if the deadlock persists, the agents have decided not to sell tickets for 18 June.
Even now, tickets for flights on June 18 are not sold.
Travel agents, according to the Travel Agents’ Association, sell almost 80 to 85 of tickets of over 1000 flights operating on domestic routes.
The airlines could thus go virtually empty, raking up huge losses for the industry.
In Kolkata alone, the loss could be as high as Rs 20-25 crore, states the Association.
While people are packing up for summer holidays, the strike could cause lots of inconvenience to the leisure travellers.
But agents say they had no other option left as repeated pleas to airlines as well as the civil aviation ministry fell on deaf ears.
