Travel agents are complaining that airlines aren’t contactable and that the lack of communication from carriers and the admin resulting from flight cancellations are the leading causes of job dissatisfaction. This is based on the results of a jobs poll by Travel News.
Airline woes dominated the list of job dislikes for the participating agents in the poll to which just under 300 agents responded; 26% said having no contact with the airline when there was a problem was the number-one ‘dislike’ at the moment.
In an industry still emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, 21% of respondents said they spent too much time making no money on cancelled flights and booking changes.
Of the responding agents, 20% said their chief bugbear was that airline websites competed with them on price.
And 15% of agents thought airlines should be paying them commission.
Do high airfares make travel unsellable? 15% of Travel News readers thought so.
Perhaps the soft and sociable heart of the industry was revealed – only 2% of agents expressed the view that it was a real problem having to assist customers who couldn’t get a handle on modern technology.
Short-term challenges
Otto de Vries, Asata CEO, said he was not surprised by the results but was satisfied that some issues were only temporary.
De Vries felt the results might have been skewed because the majority of challenges put forward in the survey related to airlines. “It sounds about right that cancelled flights and booking changes are at the top. They (airlines) are easy targets!”
He was comfortable that pricing and capacity issues would correct with time, as fuel prices and capacity stabilised worldwide. “You can argue that prices are unsellable but how then is every flight overbooked?”
Referring to the high vote on ‘Airline websites compete with us on price’, De Vries urged agents to use suppliers’ service shortfalls to their advantage and to move past competing on price.
“Any supplier will look at competitive opportunities to sell directly and reduce the cost of distribution. Look at technology companies like Samsung or Apple. Everyone sells direct as well as through indirect channels. When you talk about the value proposition of agents being competing on price, you are on a downward spiral to nowhere.”
He also said that travellers needed to see the real value of booking with a travel agent. Agents need to remind their clients of this. “When that airline loses your luggage, doesn’t take your call or respond to e-mails, who are you going to call? Travel agents bring peace of mind, duty of care, and access to multiple products and services. It can’t just be about price.”
While the poll has helped to highlight some parts of the job agents get the least enjoyment from, a similar poll, asking agents what they love most about their job now showed some interesting results. Keep reading Travel News!
