The Competition Commission of India, vide its order dated November 17, 2011 through a majority judgement, has held as illegal the call for boycott of certain foreign airlines flying from India given by the associations to which the Indian travel agents belonged following first reduction of commission from the historical nine per cent of the fare to five per cent and then switching over to the fee-per-transaction dispensation replacing the commission mode of compensation for the agents in the process.
The Commission held that such a boycott denied the travellers the services of these airlines and thus amounted to restricting competition and choice to travellers.
The case arose from the practices in the last decade.
Much water has flown down the bridge since then, and travellers are no longer at the tender mercies of travel agent what with Internet facilitating direct dealings between them and airlines in what is called business to customer transactions in an act of removing intermediaries and with them the attendant costs and efforts.
(The author is a Delhi-based chartered accountant.)