Jamie Biesiada
For some travel agents, United's recent P.R. disaster had a silver lining: it allowed them to remind clients of their value.
"If anything, from our standpoint, it's almost a way to spin it as a positive in terms of what we do for our clients," said Kendra Thornton, president of Royal Travel and Tours, based in Winnetka, Ill.
Thornton used the incident to remind clients about the added value agents provide when it comes to air travel: Making sure their clients have seat assignments, reminding them to check-in 24 hours in advance online, and sorting out alternate plans should an overbooking situation affect their travels.
"That's why we have our emergency lines and people available," she said. "I think this is an opportunity for us to reinforce a positive message for the travel agency community to our clients."
Now, many agents, Thornton included, are calling for increased federal regulations on carriers.
"There needs to be some legislation around this, or there needs to be some control on allowing airlines to oversell the flights, because it just seems to be happening more and more," Thornton said.
Eric Maryanov, president and CEO of Los Angeles-based All-Travel.com, said his leisure clients have been buzzing about the incident, but more frequent travelers have been a bit quieter because they are more familiar with things like overbooking.
"I think that people recognize that this can happen. It does happen on all the major carriers," he said. "It's really now a matter of consumer rights, and the only good thing that may come from this incident is it may finally get some activity on a federal level of addressing the situation."
Further regulation is also on the mind of Geoff Millar, co-owner of Ultimate All-Inclusive Travel and Ultimate Hawaii Vacations in Gilbert, Ariz.
Millar said he had not heard from clients with concerns, and while he believes United was within its legal rights to do what it did, the situation was "completely mishandled."
"When you look at where customer service stands on any airline's priority list, it is not at the top of the list. Their view is if we don't make money we go out of business and can't serve anyone. Airlines are, after all, for-profit businesses," he said. "In my opinion, the only answer is to go back to regulation. The government's view was if we deregulate the industry, competition will regulate the airlines. Sadly, what they have done is, through consolidation, eliminated competition, consequently weakening self-regulation."
Many agents said their clients, are talking about the incident, but few have actually had requests not to book United in the future, or to change already-booked tickets.
However, several agents on a private, travel retailer-only Facebook group reported passenger requests to avoid United, even if it meant higher-priced tickets.
One agent who was booking a trip from California to Tel Aviv for clients that normally fly United said they’d requested options from other carriers.
"They said they would be willing to pay more to avoid United,” the agent wrote.
Another agent in the group hoped the incident would remind people what travel agents deal with every day with air carriers, like changing flight schedules, cancelled flights and losing seat assignments.
"I am hoping that this incident will bring to light some of these business practices we struggle with every day when dealing with airlines," the agent wrote. "I am not saying that they are always in the wrong, but we all know how difficult it is to deal with airlines."