Travel agents face the threat of legal action from travel managers if they recommend an airline which then suffers millennium-bug problems, delegates at the Institute of Travel Management conference in Newcastle were warned.
Irish Times travel manager Joan Scales told the ITM gathering: “We deal with travel agents. It is through them we make our reservations. We will sue agents and then the airline.”
She added that if an agent gave advice on a journey and then the travel manager suffered travel difficulties, then companies would look first towards the agent who gave the advice.
She called for more information on agents’ progress at dealing with year 2000 issues and asked if an agents’ organisation was overseeing the situation. The conference was told it was a the responsibility of travel managers under health-and-safety legislation to advise staff of any problems that might occur.
Consultant Alison Dombey of Partners in Marketing said if she was asked to travel on any year 2000-sensitive dates she would ask for a hotel room on a low floor, so she did not have to use a lift and ask for a millennium compliancy statement from the hotel. Other sensible precautions would include finding out where the emergency exits were, she said.
KLM millennium communications manager Hugo Baas said he would feel confident on his own airline, but there were certain areas of the world that he would want to avoid.
ABTA chief executive Ian Reynolds said he did not think legal action against an agent would stand up if they had warned travellers or travel managers there could be a problem.