taai: Air India cuts assured incentive for travel agents; TAAI opposes the move | Tech US News

Air India has reduced the assured incentive on the sale of tickets for IATA-accredited domestic travel agencies to 0.5 per cent this fiscal, a move opposed by travel agency body TAAI. However, an Air India spokesperson said it has not reduced the incentive for travel agencies.

“On the contrary, it has increased the total incentive by 10 basis points. The only change is regarding the incentive structure, which is now based more on the performance of the agencies. In addition, the new policy allows an additional 900 IATA agents to earn incentives based on in productivity up to 1.5 percent, which was not there in the previous policy,” the spokesperson said.

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) has urged Air India to withdraw its decision with immediate effect and offer a minimum incentive/commission of 3 percent to its members and IATA-accredited agents.

The airline offered an assured incentive of 1 percent on the India BSP.

BSP is a system designed to facilitate and simplify the sales, notification and shipping procedures of IATA accredited sales agents, as well as to improve the financial control and cash flow of airlines.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is a global grouping of airlines.

“Approval is granted to reduce the assured incentive from 1% to 0.5% (BF+YQ) for domestic and international BSP agents,” Air India said in a circular on 31 October.

The revised incentive will be effective from November 1 on all tickets issued by BSP India agents, it said.

In a letter to Air India Chief Commercial Officer Nippun Aggarwal, TAAI on Monday said the group is “shocked to note that an airline like Air India has reduced incentives to 0.5 per cent with immediate effect”.

“On the contrary, we expected a minimum 3 percent increase in the efforts made by our member agents to book and sell Air India inventory along with collecting the total air fare and securing payments to IATA,” the letter said. .

TAAI marked a copy of its letter to Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal.

“We would appeal to your good offices to withdraw the said communication with immediate effect and reinstate a minimum incentive/commission of 3 per cent to IATA accredited agents and TAAI members,” he said.

According to TAAI, its members also provide a bank guarantee/financial security to IATA that allows agents to sell airline tickets.

With ticket prices averaging Rs 5,000-7,000 in domestic sectors, 0.5 per cent of the base fare will not even be Rs 15, an amount that does not even help cover a fraction of our costs, TAAI said.