Date:25/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/25/stories/2008082554020400.htm

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Travel agencies’ stir tomorrow

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Travel and tourism agency offices in the southern districts will down their shutters from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and observe a hartal on Tuesday to protest against the decision to abolish the commission given by airline companies to approved agents for ticket sales from November 1.

Hundreds of International Air Transport Association agents and others, recruiting agents and tour operators from Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Pathanamthitta districts will take out a march to the Air India office at Vellayambalam here on Tuesday.

Varkala Radhakrishnan and Panniyan Ravindran, MPs, the Congress leader M.M. Hassan and other leaders will address a dharna there.

K.V. Muraleedharan, general convener of the Travel-Tourism Coordination Forum, an organisation of travel, tourism and recruiting agents in the southern districts, told a press conference here on Saturday night that the march and dharna was the first step of the stir.

Alleging that Air India was behind the move to deny commission, Mr. Muraleedharan said the forum would boycott the airline and strengthen the agitation if it did not change its stance. “We will ensure that the trade boycotts the airline in Kerala and that the flights from here go empty,” he said. No amicable settlement could be reached in the talks held between Air India and other airline companies and the organisations of travel agents on July 24 and August 14.

The forum alleged that the decision to scrap the five per cent commission was part of a conspiracy by Air India and foreign airlines to increase airfares, especially to the Gulf sector.