Booking Air India tickets through agents will get hit this holiday season

CHENNAI: Passengers who want to book tickets on Air India through travel agents may find it difficult as the airline has discontinued its contract with a global distribution system company (GDS), Amadeus, which majority of agents use. This will affect the agents and the airlines as tickets for Christmas and New Year season, and for Pongal holidays are still being booked by travellers.

In a communication to travel agents, the airline said, “Air India flight content — domestic, international and codeshare flights — will no longer be available to Amadeus GDS subscribers in all markets including in India.” It said several rounds of negotiations were held to renew the contract which ended on December 3, but “no consensus was reached”.

The impasse will hit passengers said Basheer Ahmed of Metro Travels. “Passengers will face trouble booking tickets through agents as we will not be able to access Air India’s system to block seats, tickets and make reservations at best rates. We will now be forced to move the bookings to other airlines.”

Air India’s database is accessible through three other GDS but around 75% of the agents use Amadeus, he said. “There are a few agents who use only single GDS. They are now forced to subscribe to another GDS in a short period. The move by the airline looks like a cost-cutting measure and has come at a wrong time,” he said.

Though several tickets have been booked for the festival holidays, agents continue to get requests for Christmas and New Year holidays. Business and corporate travellers continue to book through agents for group and individual travel.

In their memorandum, Travel Agents Association of India and Travel Agents Federation of India said the airline did not consult them before taking such a decision. “Our meetings are regularly held when Air India comes up with some new initiatives. However, on this occasion, when a major initiative is taken in... we are kept out of any discussion or consultation,” they said.

The associations said Air India would suffer loss of revenue on reduced seat sale.