It’s an insult

AGENTS have rounded on British Airways for scrapping sector payments and leaving them with just a derisory 1% commission.

The trade is furious BA made the change without consultation and has vowed to switch sell. ABTA aviation board director Sandy MacPherson said: “As far as BA is concerned, it’s a done deal. We discussed Fresh Approach for a year and prepared agents for the change. This is derisory. Agents’ reward for accepting Fresh Approach is a further erosion of income.”

Clive Green Travel owner Clive Green slammed BA for letting agents waste resources updating their systems to accommodate sector payments.

He said: “Distribution has a price and BA will rue the day it did this because it’s losing touch entirely. Any agent who thinks 1% is a suitable compensation for all the work we do and flak we take because of BA is mad.”

Advantage director of business travel Norman Gage said going back on sector payments will incense its members.

“When Fresh Approach was launched, BA said ‘this is it, we are paying you a fair reward for doing the job’. But now the agent has got to go and talk to the corporate client about a higher transaction fee.”

Gage said BA’s announcement will go down like a lead balloon predicting it could destabilise the small and medium-sized business market with more clients booking direct or going to a large travel management company.

Midconsort chief executive Charles Eftichiou described the cuts as “a silly and cheap exercise”. “It’s the wrong direction, BA should be looking for more business, not cutting it back.”

He attacked BA chief executive Rod Eddington for being a “hatchet man” who was brought in to do BA’s “dirty work”.

Guild of Business Travel Agents chief executive Philip Carlisle said he was disappointed the time and effort put in to help BA construct sector payments had gone out of the window. But BA head of UK sales Tiffany Hall hit back, stating agents had to realise the airline is operating in a different market to five years ago. “We would have loved a period of stability,” she said. “But could we have predicted the growth of low-costs, the war, the change in business travel? The answer is no.”