Saturday, 21 April 2012

Air India to sort out pricing issue with online travel agencies


Air India will be meeting major online travel agencies to sort out issues concerning ticket pricing and revenue sharing. 
Airline companies are at loggerheads with travel portals on ?opaque fares'. Airlines like Indigo and Jet Airways had pulled out inventory (removed their tickets) from the Nasdaq-listed Web site makemytrip.com in protest against the ?opaque fares' scheme the portal deployed on its Web site. 
?Opaque fares' is a practice where a portal sells heavily discounted tickets. It is a form of blind booking as the identity of the airline is kept a secret till the buyer pays for the non-refundable ticket. 
Late last month, aviation regulator DGCA had directed all airlines to stop participating in any ?opaque fare' scheme being offered by the online travel portals 
Several airlines complained that through this scheme, some portals were issuing low-priced tickets of cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines, a charge denied by Vijay Mallya's carrier. 
However, makemytrip.com maintained ?that the fares and inventory of various airlines on its Web site was controlled by the airlines. All fares are displayed as per the guidelines received and approved by airlines including the special fares that were approved by the participating airlines.? 
Industry sources pointed out that some portals were not charging any cancellation fee on some air tickets. 

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