DGCA told to sort out travel agent commission issue

MUMBAI: Domestic travel agents, which have been demanding commission from foreign airlines, have managed to draw the government�s attention.

Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel on Tuesday asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to look into the matter, a person privy to the development said. He said the DGCA might ask both parties to explain their case.

Earlier, members of six associations, including the Travel Agents� Association of India (TAAI), Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) and the IATA Agents Association of India (IAAI), met Mr Patel in New Delhi. TAAI president Rajii Rai told ET: �We have urged Mr Patel to restore our commission.�

Most airlines stopped paying 5% commission from November last year forcing agents to shift to a fixed-transaction fee on every ticket purchased. From December, however, the fixed-transaction fee, which was in the range of Rs 350-2,500 a ticket, was also discontinued.

Later, all domestic carriers agreed to pay 3% commission to travel agents from December. But foreign airlines have not been paying anything to travel agents.

Typically, travel agents and online portals account for more than 85% of airlines\' ticket sales, while the remaining 15% are sold directly by the carriers. There are about 50,000 travel agents in the country.

JetLite gets global certification for maintainance, safety

New Delhi (PTI): JetLite, the wholly-owned no-frill subsidiary of Jet Airways, on Monday announced receiving a global certification for maintainance of safety in flight operations and other areas. Following stringent audit of its operations in various areas including engineering, maintenance, flight operations and dispatch, cabin operation, ground handling and security, the airline received the International Air Transport Association\'s (IATA) Safety Audit certification called IOSA. The IOSA is a globally recognised and accepted benchmarking and evaluation system to asses the operational management and control systems of an airline. It uses internationally-accepted quality audit principles. It is also used by airlines worldwide to identify partners for the purpose of codesharing. This is a very important step for JetLite. We have confirmed that we have operational safety processes that are in alignment with all IOSA standards. We welcome the confirmation of our high standards of safety through IOSA registration, Jet Airways CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said. IOSA Registration is also a condition for airlines to become members of the IATA. As many as 274 airlines across the globe are IOSA registered at present.

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Jet Airways not to opt for FDI in present market conditions

Mumbai (PTI): Private air carrier Jet Airways on Tuesday said it would not sell its equity to foreign carriers at this stage in view of the low valuation in current market. We will not go for any equity dilution to foreign air-carriers at this stage as it will not fetch us the required funds, a senior Jet Airways official told PTI here. Jet Airways is the largest air-carrier in the country. Naresh Goyal\'s Tail Winds holds 80 per cent stake in it. Jet\'s assertion comes in the wake of the Union Government\'s proposal to allow domestic airlines to sell stake to foreign carriers. Last year, Goyal was looking at diluting his stake to raise funds. But the stock markets have been on the downslide since January 2008, leading to a slump in Jet Airways stock prices, too. Low valuation was the reason for not going ahead with Goyal\'s dilution last year, too, the Jet official said. Even industry experts feel that it would not be a good move for the air carrier to go for equity infusion from overseas in view of the prevailing market conditions. It is correct on Jet Airways part not to go for equity infusion from foreign airlines and rather manage cash on their own, an aviation analyst from a brokerage firm said on anonymity. The market cap of Jet is currently Rs 1,500 crore, which is too low valuation to dilute the stake, he said. The current FDI norms prohibit overseas airlines from picking up stake in Indian carriers.Kingfisher Airlines Chairman Vijay Mallya had sometime ago written to the Union Government to allow FDI in domestic carriers to make them internationally competitive. With mounting losses, liquidity crunch, Mallya is scouting for foreign funds to keep his airlines afloat.

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Kingfisher Airlines registers net loss worth Rs 413 crores in Q3

The Vijay Mallya-controlled Kingfisher Airlines has posted a net loss of Rs 413 crore for the third quarter of the current financial year as against a net loss of Rs 427 crore in the corresponding period last year.Company officials stated in a release that the increase in loss in the quarter was on account of initiation costs of international operations (Rs 17 crore), increase in interest expenses (Rs 100 crore) and exchange rate impact of dollar denominated expenses (Rs 60 crore).
It may be noted that private carrier had a loss of Rs 105 crore in the nine months ended December 2008 against a loss of Rs 617 crore reported for the same period in the last financial year.However, the company\'s net income during the period has surged to Rs 1,447 crore as compared to Rs 1,353 crore in the same quarter in the previous year.

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