Regional Director of British Airways for Eastern Europe Daniel Burkard stated that some of their Ukrainian partners do not adhere to the airline's ticket booking and redemption conditions stipulated in the contract. That is, agencies book tickets when they are still cheap, and redeem them at the low price when their cost has already increased. As a result of such actions, the airline lost a huge amount of money (fines have been set at $60,000). It is this money that British Airways intends to recover from the Ukrainian travel agencies.
The latter, for their part, do not deny their own fault and are even ready to pay the bills received from British Airways. However, the scale of the conflict, which the airline has taken to the mass media, has touched a raw nerve with the Ukrainian agencies. In this regard, travel companies such as 'Zagorye', 'Gamalia', 'SAM', 'New Logic', American Express, 'Kiy Avia', 'Universal Agency' and others invited journalists to explain their position in the aforementioned discussion.
'All our attempts to contact the regional management of British Airways have failed,' said Igor Korolenko, director of the travel company 'Zagorye'. 'The Kiev office of their representation is subordinate to Moscow, and the girls working here are, unfortunately, not competent in this matter. We have no complaints about them.'
The twelve travel agencies involved in the conflict (which, by the way, make up 80% of the airline ticket sales market) wrote a letter to Mr. Burkard: we accept the airline's claims, the terms of booking and redeeming tickets were indeed violated. But this fact is explained by delays in the work of the British Embassy, which needs sufficient time to vet the client and provide them with a visa. The representatives of the travel firms note in the letter that other airlines take this peculiarity of the Ukrainian market into account. This collective message ends with a wish for an early meeting to resolve the problem.
However, when Mr. Burkard was in Kiev on a business visit soon after, he did not find time to meet with the heads of the Ukrainian travel companies, but instead sent a letter, citing the busy schedule of a trip that had been planned much earlier. In his response, the regional director of British Airways noted that the airline makes no exceptions for anyone in ticket booking, and if the Ukrainian partners violated the terms of the contract, they must compensate for the losses. In conclusion, Daniel Burkard advised the Ukrainian travel firms to focus on selling business-class tickets (which are two to three times more expensive than regular ones) so that such incidents would not happen again, and to let economy class be sold by those companies that can do so while complying with the conditions.
The position of British Airways is quite understandable. The world's oldest airline, and not only it, has recently been suffering huge losses related to a sharp drop in demand for air travel due to the September 11 terrorist attacks, debts, and competition from cheaper airlines. British Airways has carried out a number of reforms to reduce its costs: it cut staff, abandoned some flights, and reduced the number of airliners. However, this proved insufficient, and the airline's management turned its gaze to Eastern Europe, remembering that there are problems with compliance with ticket sales rules there. And British Airways submitted bills to its Ukrainian partners as far back as November of last year.
'We have similar problems with other airlines too, this is a normal working situation,' says Igor Korolenko, 'but we have never received such ultimatums. Our company received a bill for $2,500 (other agencies - from $500 to $10,000), and we will definitely pay it. However, the management of British Airways refuses to talk to us, noting that a conversation is possible only after all bills have been paid.'
And Yulia Ivanova (sales director of American Express) noted that British Airways deprived the Ukrainian agencies of ticket forms: 'In this way, they are blocking us from our current work.' She also stressed that 'British Airways changed the fare structure without prior notice, although this is stated in the contract.'
'When British Airways went on strike, we also had a hard time, but we did not complain that we were losing money and clients because of them,' continues Igor Korolenko. 'So why are they imposing fines on us now? Are we not equal partners?'
In turn, Yuri Yefremov, general director of the 'Kiy Avia' agency, noted that 'the management of British Airways forgets that it is doing business in another country, whose laws differ from British ones. In Ukraine, a month is allotted for the consideration of claims, while British Airways wants to receive the money within 10 days (here, by the way, it is also not entirely clear - sometimes the airline demands immediate payment of bills, sometimes it kindly allows this to be done within six months). They do not want to accept our realities.'
Indeed, in such a situation, Ukrainian travel firms have virtually no motives for maintaining good relations with the British airline. The companies' income from British Airways amounts to no more than 1% of total profits. 'In my company it is 0.75%,' says the director of 'Zagorye'. 'For comparison, from Lufthansa - 10%, from Austrian Airlines - 15%.' It should also be noted that British Airways is the only foreign airline that does not work with hryvnias, 'which is very inconvenient, including for clients, and does not comply with Ukrainian legislation.'
However this conflict develops in the future, one thing is clear: the 'debriefing' will hit the pockets of air passengers planning to fly with British Airways first and foremost. From now on, they will either have to plan their trip in advance (at least a month ahead) and obtain visas, or count on the airline's highest fares. It is doubtful that under such conditions the volume of air traffic and, accordingly, the profit of any of the companies will increase.