Travel agents face existential crisis

The travel agents are facing an "existential crisis" due to the countrywide internet blackout as all activities of around 4,000 travel agents have remained halted since Thursday night.

Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (ATAB), a platform for travel agents, said ATAB is incurring a loss of around Tk 100 crore as all kinds of air ticket sales, rescheduling and hotel bookings have remained halted since July 18.

Besides, travel agents also couldn't realise money from different corporate and regular clients from earlier sale of tickets, as monetary transactions remained suspended due to the closure of banks and other financial services, said ATAB.

"Our existence will be in danger if internet service does not resume immediately. We need to start our activities as soon as possible," ATAB President Abdus Salam Aref, told The Daily Star yesterday.

"We assume bitter days are awaiting us due to the ongoing situation," he added.

ATAB fears that travel agencies will fail to pay International Air Transport Association (IATA) bills if the current situation continues for another day or two.

Different foreign airlines collect money against ticket sales from IATA, as it acts as a mediator between travel agents and foreign airlines.

Travel agents pay airlines through IATA every 15 days. The next payment date falls on July 30, said the ATAB president.

"Besides, if we cannot collect the ticket sales money from buyers and organisations, we won't be able to pay arrears to respective airlines," he added.

"We have not been able to contact any airlines in the last five days due to the internet shutdown," he said, adding that global distributing system, ticket booking -- everything entirely depends on online communication.

The ongoing crisis has also put outgoing passengers in limbo.

ATAB leaders said they are in total darkness regarding whether passengers who have already bought and issued tickets will be able to fly to their respective destinations.

In the present situation, passengers who need to fly immediately buy tickets directly from the respective airlines at airports.

Additionally, incoming passengers are also unable to return to the country due to the crisis caused by the internet shutdown.

Things are really chaotic in the travel industry now, said Abdus Salam Aref.

Due to the internet outage, the total ticket-selling system has collapsed, said different airlines as foreign airline depends on agencies for selling tickets.

Due to passenger shortage, around 26 flights have been cancelled since last Friday, they said.

Several hundred passengers, mostly Saudi Arabia-bound Bangladeshi migrant workers, suffered immensely due to the cancellation or delay of flights to and from the Dhaka airport.

The return of the workers to KSA on time became uncertain as Saudia, the national flag carrier of Saudi Arabia, cancelled at least 10 flights following the blackout.

Meanwhile, according to the civil aviation and tourism ministry, limited-scale internet service has resumed at the country's airports.