ISSN: 1391 - 0531
Sunday September 9, 2007
Vol. 42 - No 15
Financial Times  

Airlines fleecing public, says ALFEA

Employment agents are complaining that airlines flying to the Middle East are fleecing the public with different fare levels for each class with migrant workers being the worst affected.

“At present travel agents or airlines say no seats are available to the Middle East. But at the same time they say seats at a higher fare in the same economy class is available. The profit margin they make on each seat is between Rs 3,000 to Rs 25,000,” complained Suraj Dandeniya, President of the Association of Licensed Travel Agents (ALFEA) in a letter to the Director-General of Civil Aviation.

This situation, prevalent for a long period of time, has aggravated in recent weeks due to the holiday season in the UAE when its nationals travel overseas in hordes, resulting in a shortage of seats on all flights into that region. The ALFEA President has urged the Civil Aviation chief to stop this black-marketing of tickets.

Airline officials say the practice of having different categories (A-B-C etc) per class (First, Business and Economy Classes) has been force for many years. Under this the fares per class vary which could mean two passengers could pay two different fares in the same class on the same sector. They said during high season airlines quote the higher rate per class and the low season is based on lower fares.

But Dandeniya said due to this practice migrant workers are unable to find seats on flights which affects the economy as they are valuable resources of foreign exchange unlike holiday travellers.

 

Top to the page
E-mail


Copyright 2007 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd.Colombo. Sri Lanka.