BA: ‘Not our job to support agents’

Tuesday, 01 Oct, 2003 0

Agents do not get paid a commission by no-frills carriers, so they have no reason to expect if from BA, according to the airline’s head of corporate sales Ian Heywood.

During a meeting with journalists on Tuesday, Mr Heywood told TravelMole: “The no-frills airlines don’t pay commission – why do you expect me to pay you a commission when I am competing with them? You have to realise we are in the same market.”

British Airways director of sales worldwide, Dale Moss (pictured) was also at the meeting. He said: “Over time perhaps the trade will realise that we are just responding to market forces – we don’t want to engage them as the enemy.

“But, it has never been our responsibility to support agents. Everyone has to step up and provide value to the customer.”

He added: “Agents were originally working on behalf of the airlines, but now they are agents on behalf of the customer. They [agents] are accountable for their own preservation and they must find ways of getting the customer to stop seeing them as the cost in the middle.”

Mr Moss added: “There has never been a better time for good agents and never a worse time for mediocre agents.”

BA’s head of UK and Ireland marketing, Jayne O’Brien also attended the meeting. She said that agents should start charging fees and said agents that had done so were telling BA that they were doing better financially.

Mr Heywood emphasised that agents were still an important distribution channel for the airline. A spokeswoman told TravelMole that 80% of BA sales are still distributed by the trade. The carrier is meeting with ABTA this week to talk about how it can work with smaller independent agents since dropping commission to 1%.

Mr Moss added: “If we were making £700 million a year then I would certainly be paying commission.”

More from the BA meeting tommorrow

Read our previous stories:
26-Sept-2003 Swiss to cut agency commission
23-Sep-2003 Swiss to join OneWorld
19-Sept-2003 Comment by Jeremy Skidmore: Wise up over commission cuts
12-Sept-2003 Commission cuts come thick and fast
08-Sept-2003 Iberia drops to 1%
04-Sept-2003 Newspaper claims BA boycott is imminent
29-Aug-2003 BA to ditch Fresh Approach