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AFTA interview
Dear Editor, I noticed I could not directly comment to your interview with Mike Hatton of AFTA. I resisted commenting immediately so I re read again. I have come to the conclusion again that in my opinion AFTA does not provide leadership at a crucial time where strong leadership is required. To say that AFTA has to only deal with the TCF and IATA etc. is avoiding exactly what it should be doing. That is tackling what is the most vital issue facing travel agents at the moment, the continuing and ever expanding erosion of their income. We as an industry should be coming up with strategies to dissuade airlines and wholesalers from this current trend. The airline industry and particular Qantas ignore us and our concerns and treat us with contempt. They would not do this if we were strong and unified but perhaps the AFTA board did not object strongly enough. If “AFTA has no direct relationship with a supplier and hence is not an affected party” who is AFTA representing? The agents are the affected party and AFTA is their representative? “At the end of the day all this organisation can do is try and maintain the base commission regime”. Well perhaps that’s a tad late since the base commission regime is now 0% on domestic and 5% on international. It is always “against the law” whenever, it is suggested that we as an industry retaliate, using our rights to make a “commercial decision”, to protect our livelihood. I wonder how many agents would see value in paying the AFTA membership fee, if the fees were separated from the Major Chains’ franchise fees. Then there would be a clearer picture of who wants AFTA to represent them. It is my belief that AFTA, with this present structure would cease to exist.
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