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Airlines under fire for ADM abuse
Airlines have come under attack for their indiscriminate use of Agency Debit Memos at this week’s Passenger Agency Conference in Geneva.
Mike Hatton, president of the World Travel Agents Associations Alliance, told delegates the actions of a number of carriers are “creating untold angst within the distribution system”.
“The degree of abuse that is taking place should no longer be acceptable to either airlines or agents as an industry, and therefore serious consideration has to be given to achieving a mechanism to resolve these issues,” he said.
He said his association has been experiencing situations around the world where:
* information as to the reason for the raising of an ADM is very sparse and on many occasions incomprehensible
* credit card transactions have been charged twice by an airline to the consumer’s card and instead of an ACM or credit being issued to cover the error, an ADM was issued to the agent effectively creating a third charge
* ADMs have been issued to agents when airline check-in staff have failed to collect fees or additional charges when the passenger has initiated an en route change direct with the airline in question
* genuine disputes lodged by agents within the 14 day review period are ignored with the end result of the money being removed from the agent’s bank account.
He added: “In at least one country an agent made a mistake in placing 20 in the baggage allowance area instead of two, as the itinerary involved a journey into the US.
“The airline in question immediately issued the agent with an ADM for some thousands of dollars based on an average baggage weight per bag and this ADM was issued to the agent weeks before the passenger had even commenced the journey.”
He asked airline representatives at the conference: “Do we or do we not want a distribution system for airline product?
“If the answer is no, then let us all be honest with one another and say so and leave here and go home and get on with our lives without the hassles that we have faced over the past 12 months and the years before.
“If the answer is yes, then it is beholden on everybody to address the issues and to have the courage to institute reform of a system which is in my view starting to decay at an ever increasing rate.”
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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