| Aeroflot restructured relations with agents Starting in March, Aeroflot will stop paying commissions to its Moscow agents - the company hopes to increase its income in this way. Travel agency employees believe that this measure will bring losses to both them and the airline itself, and will create queues at Aeroflot ticket offices.
Yesterday, Aeroflot commercial director Evgeny Bachurin spoke about how the company intends to rebuild its relationships with agents. Currently, the base commission rate for an agent is 7% of the ticket price. In addition, if the agent performs well (i.e. sells a lot of tickets), he is entitled to a bonus, which can reach 5%. 88% of Aeroflot tickets are sold through an agent network, which consists of approximately 340 companies around the world; the rest is sold by the airline's own ticket offices.
Since the introduction of the summer schedule in 2004 (i.e., from March 28), not very pleasant changes await Aeroflot's partner agencies located in Moscow - this is approximately 30% of their total number. Mr. Bachurin said that the commission for them will be reduced to a purely symbolic amount - 1 dollar per ticket. However, the maximum bonus amount will be increased to 9%. Travel agencies will also be allowed to set a markup above the ticket price set by Aeroflot. Mr. Bachurin stated that “at first” Aeroflot will not in any way regulate the size of this markup and will entirely leave this important issue to the discretion of each individual agent. At the same time, so that tickets sold through Aeroflot’s own ticket offices do not suddenly become significantly cheaper than the same tickets from agents, the airline will raise prices in its own network by 5%. Mr. Bachurin expects that the measures taken will increase the share of sales through the airline's own network, although not very significantly - from the current 12 to 15%.
The “zero” commission is not Aeroflot’s own invention; many leading airlines in the world build their relationships with agents according to this scheme. Nevertheless, Moscow travel companies did not arouse enthusiasm for the upcoming innovation. Their general mood was expressed yesterday by the press secretary of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RSI) Irina Tyurina: in her opinion, after March 28, the drop in sales volumes through the agent network will be significant, and, accordingly, the number of customers turning to Aeroflot’s own ticket offices will increase, which , naturally, will cause half-forgotten queues. “Aeroflot takes us back to the times of socialism,” summed up Ms. Tyurina. She did not rule out that instead of the expected growth in income, Aeroflot will suffer losses.
In the meantime, the airline's financial indicators are showing positive dynamics. According to Aeroflot's just-summed results for January, its revenues are 21% higher than in the first month of last year.
In the fall, Aeroflot transportation may become more expensive again. The fact is that the company’s tariffs are fixed in “conventional units”. Until February 1 of this year under “cu.” meant dollar. Due to its sharp decline starting this month, Aeroflot invested in its “e.g.” new content, equating it to 30 rubles. Now, as Mr. Bachurin said, the company is considering the possibility of taking the euro as the unit for calculating tariffs. If a positive decision is made on this score, then the introduction of “European” (in the appropriate proportion increased) prices should be expected in September-October. Mikhail KUKUSHKIN |
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