Delta-The last Roar of a Gasping Tiger
A couple of years I was surprised that Delta cut out it’s commission to it’s agents… sure, it’s nice to cut out those commissions that you pay those pesky little agents…. but when you have thousands of them across the country, that’s a powerful little sales force working for you(and you don’t even have to pay them unless they work!) No minimum wage, no benefits…. that is every employers dream, but not Delta’s…
As I said earlier they then began a little trick of selling their published tickets for less then agents could purchased their wholesale tickets from Delta. We still managed to hold on as there were still some net fares that we could sell for less than their published fares and some agents just added on a $20-25+ service charge.
It doesn’t look like the resourefulness of the the agents sat well with Delta. We’re like that piece of toilet paper stuck to the sole of your shoe that you can’t quite shake off… and so Delta has taken it’s next step: Force agents to sell land arrangements(either hotel, auto rental or cruises, tours etc..) if they want to sell a net fare ticket. They’ve followed the lead of Air France(the one with the really low fares that is being threatened with a law suit for illegally using it’s domestic income to subsidize it’s international flights) with this nifty little trick.
Logically, there is no reason for them to require the sale of a land package. It doesn’t increase their revenue one bit… and why would they care if an agent books a hotel for a client in Outer Mongolia? But their logic is that it will…. force more of those pesky agents to stop selling Delta’s tickets and cutting into their profits!
What will the result of this be? Delta will sell less tickets and since they’re operating on the verge of extinction, that’s a pretty dumb move.(think of what happens to a newspaper if they remove all their pay boxes from a city!)
I can’t help thinking that Delta won’t be around long as their downward spiral continues…. but on the other hand I’m also curios to know what huge bonuses the management who made these bad decisions will be recieving.
Delta is flexing it’s withering muscles and hoarsely roaring at it’s once respected agents…but I think I know who will have the last laugh!