Direct sales from major airlines is expanding rapidly, pushing ticket agents to rethink their strategies.
Lufthansa and Swiss Air will lower their commission from 3 percent to 1 percent for ticket sales on international itineraries effective August 1st.
All Nippon Airways, China Southern and Air China will also cut their current commission from 5 percent to 3 percent starting July, said Ye Ping, PR spokeswoman for travel service provider yoee.com.
Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines stopped paying commission to their agents as early as April.
Small- and medium-sized ticket agents focus mainly on domestic routes, but as carriers drop their commissions, they will start feeling the impact, Ye said. Air China may cut commissions on domestic lines within 18 months, Ye added.
Commissions remain the major source of income for ticket agents.
"It's certain that commissions will drop to zero in the future," said Zou Jianjun, a professor at the China Aviation Management Institute.
Intermediary agents selling airtickets account for the majority of sales in China, but as the population gets more Internet savvy, online bookings and direct purchases from airlines are going up.
Now the competition among agents is getting more intense while profit margins drop.
"We have to give up partial commission on discount air tickets. That's the only reason we still have customers," said saleswoman Shan Tianyu at Huaxia Airline Service. "With zero commission, ticket prices will become more reasonable," Zou said, adding that agents must find other streams of revenue to survive.
Yoee.com and other online ticket sellers already get revenue from hotel deals and travel packages in addition to plane tickets. But small-time airplane ticket sellers "might disappear entirely," Zou said.
