agents spurn abta’s help over BA debit memos

DESPERATE agents have spurned ABTA’s help and held their own crisis meeting in a bid to fight British Airways’ move to backdate Agency Debit Memos.

A group of London-based retailers – all of whom have received backdated ADMs for newly enforced offences, including back-to-back ticketing and missing ticketing deadlines – met last week to muster support for a concerted campaign against outstanding fines.

Meeting organiser Karim Gazzaoui, owner of London-based Global Flights International, said BA was threatening the livelihood of small travel agents countrywide. “I don’t care if it’s £200 or £5,000,” he said. “This is a principle. It’s crazy to backdate penalties for what’s been standard business practice.”

Another attendant, who refused to be named, branded BA’s attempts to generate cash from agents already suffering a fall in bookings since September 11 “obscene and perverse”.

“I can’t even begin to quantify how much I owe. I don’t have any faith in BA’s six month cut-off date because I’ve already received ADMs backdated to last May. We have bent over backwards to help BA in the past but this has got so serious we could have to close our doors.”

The carrier has further penalised protesting high-street retailers by withdrawing their sales and marketing agreements, according to another London agent.

“The airline may be threatening us and saving some money through ADMs, but for every £1 it’s getting, it’ll be losing £10 worth of business,” he insisted. “BA is trying to ruin us but we won’t go down without a fight.”

Meeting organisers also claim ABTA failed to do enough to stop the national carrier introducing technology to police ADM offences. However, Newman Street insisted BA’s decision to extend ticket payment deadlines from 12 to 72 hours was as a direct result of its intervention.