The travel agents have decided to charge a transaction fee of Rs 350 to Rs 500 per ticket for the domestic sector, depending on the distance to be flown by the customer, Travel Agents Association of India President Rajinder Raj said.
Passengers travelling to overseas destination would be charged Rs 2,500 for each Economy Class ticket, Rs 5,000 for Business Class and Rs 10,000 for the First Class, he added.
The move came a day ahead of the November 1 deadline for the 'zero commission' concept to come into effect. The agents have called upon the aviation industry to take alternative steps to make up for their losses and share the burden with customers. They also want the airlines to defer tomorrow's deadline for enforcing 'zero commission'.
To date, a five per cent commission was built into the airline fares for the travel agents.
"If airlines stop commission and the agents are still not ready to foot the additional bill on their own, then there will be chaos from tomorrow," Raj said, adding that they would like the airlines to defer the implementation of the 'zero commission' rule.
Aviation firms Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines would lose a lot as tickets of other overseas carriers, which have not agreed to this measure so far, would be much cheaper compared to those of the Indian carriers, said Assocham Expert Committee chief on Tourism, Subhas Goyal.
