The death of the airline ticket office

Although the ease and popularity of  booking online and the need to cut costs have almost eliminated airlines ticket offices these days, the city ticket office remains an important part of the airline business.

In New York, despite losing the lease on their old office, American Airlines opened a new office in Manhattan. But they are in a growing minority. While it used to be easy to spot airline offices in most downtown business centres, now only the foreign airlines are visible.

In 2004, after many closures, Northwest shut down their remaining 25 offices in 16 cities in the States. Today, United Airlines also has no ticket offices. Continental Airlines, based in Huston, has only four ticket offices.  US Airways has only one at its headquarters in Arizona.

“We could easily have closed it,” says American executive John Lisiewski, speaking about the old office. “But there’s a very large segment of the population that still likes to be face to face with a travel agent.”

Airline consultant Craig Jenks says that approximately a third of outbound overseas tickets are paid for by cash of check. So while an increasing number of customers are using credit cards to book over the internet or by phone, there is still a large market for in-person, old fashioned transactions.

Many of those who pay cash for international flights are from various ethnic groups in New York and to serve this group, the new American Airline office will be staffed with multi-lingual agents. American Airlines expects about half of the sales in the office to be in cash. They will charge a $15 service fee for in-person transactions.

www.aa.com