Q: You have often written columns that criticize the way ARC treats travel agencies. However, last year at this time, ARC dropped its proposal for same-day voiding. Has ARC taken any other actions that you would characterize as pro-agent?
A: Until now, I would have said that ARC has done nothing in the past year to help agencies. However, the set of liberalizations announced by ARC last month, which will become effective on March 15, comes as a very pleasant, pro-agency surprise.
Under current rules, every ARC-appointed headquarters location and full branch office must be open and freely accessible to the general public, identified as a place for the sale of air travel and engaged primarily in the retail sale of travel services. Every such location must also have a full-time manager who meets the two-year-sales-experience test and either the ARC Specialist test or (for some older locations) the one-year-ticketing-experience test.
All these rules will be repealed next month. For branches, these changes open up interesting and potentially important possibilities, such as the following:
- Agencies can reduce personnel costs at their branches' offices, if they now employ qualifiers merely to comply with ARC rules. In practice, though, I believe that such reductions-in-force will be minimal, as staffs are already trimmed to the bone at most agencies.
- Agencies with branches that, in violation of ARC rules, do not have qualifiers on staff due to employee attrition and non-replacement can now keep those branches open. I believe there are hundreds or even thousands of such locations today.
- Large agencies might be able to dispense with their headquarters staff's administrative busywork involved in keeping track of each branch's personnel qualifications and periodic retesting.
- All agencies can open new branches in new communities without having to worry about any extra expense and effort to recruit the qualifiers previously needed. This change will enable agencies to open branches more quickly and inexpensively.
- Agencies could shut down branches during slack periods or staff them just part-time as needed.
ARC notes that, if you have no managerial qualifier at a branch, you must designate a manager at your headquarters (or at another branch) who will be responsible for the branch's operations and who has authority to make management decisions for the branch.
For headquarters and branch locations, agencies can be in any location where it is legal to operate a business, including at-home offices of employees and independent contractors. While many agencies already have personnel working at home, the new rules will allow you to move your headquarters into your home and move all your branches into other homes.
Regardless of location or staff, each headquarters and branch must file its weekly ARC report, maintain security of paper ticket stock and safeguard e-ticket data. If you do not want to do these things anymore but want to retain your ARC number, ARC has a Verified Travel Consultant classification, which lets you operate an office in your home or other location that does not do ticketing.
Mark Pestronk is a Washington-based lawyer specializing in travel law. To submit a question for Legal Briefs, email him at mark@pestronk.com.
