For most travelers, it's second nature. Call a travel agent. It's quick, painless and best of all -- free.
But travel agents say the limit imposed this week by major airlines on their commissions could force them to start charging fees.
Small travel agencies, they said, won't survive. And ultimately, passengers will be forced to tackle a baffling labyrinth of fares and schedules.
"Consumers literally will have to make eight to 10 calls to make sure they're getting the best deal," said Robert Vaughn, president of the Central Atlantic region of the American Society of Travel Agents.
"Right now, you can sit down and pump us for information for hours and there's no charge. If our airlines partners take our commissions away, we're going to have to charge something."
Delta Airlines started the on slaught last week when it shattered a sacred relationship with travel agents, announcing it would limit commissions to $50 for each domestic round-trip ticket sold and $25 for one-way tickets. Until then, travel agents were paid a 10 percent commission based on the ticket price.
But U.S. airlines have lost $14 billion since 1988. And as part of the industry's sweeping cost-cutting efforts, travel agent TC commissions have emerged as one of the largest items -- $7.5 billion a year -- or nearly as much as fuel.
"We're not in the business of putting travel agents out of business," Bobby Harper, a spokesman for Delta Airlines, said yesterday. "We're in the business of making sure that we stay in business."
Historically, however, airlines have viewed commissions as untouchable, for fear they would lose millions of dollars in business from travel agents, who book 85 percent of the airlines' tickets. Indeed, with competition so fierce in the airline industry, carriers routinely pay bonuses to travel agents who shepherd customers their way.
But shortly after Delta's surprise announcement last Thursday, other carriers followed suit. By yesterday, all but one major carrier, America West, had imposed the limits.
"People are stunned," said Jay Ellenby, president of Safe Harbors Business Travel Group Inc. in Baltimore. "I don't think anyone ever considered a cap."
While agents expected some change as the airlines restructure, the severity and quickness caught them off guard.
"Airlines didn't give us a whole lot of time to plan and strategize," said Mr. Ellenby.
In response, the American Society of Travel Agents, representing some 5,300 agencies, has called for an emergency meeting in Washington this weekend.
And yesterday, in a Minneapolis federal court, Travel Network Ltd., a large travel agency company based in New Jersey, filed the industry's first major lawsuit against the airlines.
The suit is seeking class action status to represent all travel agents in the United States and accuses the airlines of a conspiracy to fix their commissions at "artificially low and noncompetitive levels," the Associated Press reported. It asks the court to declare the caps an illegal restraint of interstate trade and to force the airlines to pay triple the amount of damages suffered by every affected agency.
Atlanta-based Delta said it took the initiative last Thursday as part of its two-year, $2.5 billion cost-cutting program. It insisted that only 20 percent of the tickets sold by travel agents would be affected by the cap.
"We hoped other carriers would join," said Mr. Harper, "but quite honestly, we were afraid that we might be left out to dry."
But many travel agents were not so sure.
"Of course they're saying no collusion [is] involved, but all these agreements and waivers look very similar," said John L. Lewis, general manager of Travel Destinations Management Group, in Owings Mills. "All the majors are going along with this program."
Under the new caps, the commission on round-trip tickets costing $500 or less -- the vast majority of leisure fares -- would remain essentially unaffected.
But even smaller agencies that handle mostly discounted tickets will suffer, according to industry representatives.
Lisa Haber, owner of Travel Agents International in Timonium, said it costs her agency $20 to $25 to issue an airline ticket. Based on a 10 percent commission, agencies lose money on each ticket under $250. Agencies rely on tickets over $500, she said, to offset losses associated with issuing the increasing number of discount tickets.
Agencies that handle mostly business-class tickets, averaging $600 to $1,200, will be hit proportionately harder. A $900 ticket that once earned a travel agent $90, before taxes, will now mean a flat $50.
"It's seriously going to affect our revenues," Mr. Lewis said. "Our immediate guess is that it will dilute them by 20 percent."
The commission cap does not affect international flights.
"But we're very concerned that if nothing's done now," Mr. Ellenby said, "it could be the next step."