Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9411050005
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Travel agents traditionally do not charge the people who use their services. Instead, they collect commissions from the airlines, hotels, cruise ships and others in the travel industry whose tickets they sell.
That may be changing, said Gene Swartz of Travelmasters in Roanoke. Fee-based agencies that handle commercial accounts are already springing up in larger cities and are doing well, he said.
Business clients, Swartz said, recognize that they must pay fees today if they want the travel services on which they depend to survive.
Agencies in large markets such as New York have set fees for their business clients, such as for issuing, changing and delivering tickets; making hotel reservations and refunding money for unused tickets.
If airlines reduce commissions, Swartz said, fee-based business may be the only means of survival for agencies dealing with the commercial market.
Swartz knows of no fee-based agency in the leisure travel market.
As air carriers try to cut costs, comfort and convenience could decline as well.
Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas, is pioneering this path. Many amenities to which flyers are accustomed must be "forsaken" by anyone traveling with Southwest, Swartz said.
Southwest passengers don't receive seat assignments, racing instead for the available seats. Seat assignment, he said, "is a very expensive feature for the airlines. It takes a lot of staff and administration to do that."
Furthermore, anyone whose trip requires use of Southwest and another airline must carry a completely separate ticket for the Southwest leg, Swartz said. That's because Southwest has reduced its expenses by eliminating network agreements with other airlines.
For the same reason, luggage cannot be checked to the final destination if travelers fly a leg of their journeys with Southwest. Southwest will not pick up from, nor deliver to, any other airline.
John Austin, spokesman for Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis, said Southwest is about to test ticketless travel. Instead of arriving at the airport with ticket and, thus, a reservation in hand, he said, passengers will line up at the gate to pay for their fares with cash or a credit card.
Austin said his own airline, Northwest, has no plans at this time to change the way it pays travel agents or handles passengers.
But he said Northwest, which serves Roanoke through a commuter partnership, "is watching the moves of some competitors" such as Southwest and Delta Airlines. Changes, Austin said, are "flooding in the marketplace."
by CNB