In the early days of the Travel Agency/Airline relationship, consolidators were considered a shadowy group of people that sold “cheap tickets”, usually written on a particular airline’s ticket stock, with their offices in a boiler room or basement of a building. Tickets often had to be paid for in cash, maybe a check and never a credit card. They were not highly regarded and their airline discounts and deals were often viewed with suspicion as to their legality. Many travel agents advised their clients against the purchase of tickets from these “bucket shops”.
Today, Consolidators are considered one of the most reliable groups of Travel Companies in the industry. There is an organization for maintaining standards and professional conduct, USACA (United States Air Consolidators Association). Many have been in business for 20 years or more and are multi million dollar companies. Almost all tickets are issued either on universal airline ticket stock or through electronic ticketing (E Tickets). Virtually all airlines work with consolidators and a number of consolidators have made a significant investment in providing availability of fares through the major reservations systems or on the World Wide Web to Travel Agencies. There are even publications dedicated to providing you with updated information regarding consolidators, but if you are reading this you’ve already found one of the best ones. Times have really changed!
At Sky Bird Travel, we try to provide the Travel Agency community with the best in the way of professional standards and responsiveness to needs. For those agencies that are still not familiar with using an airline consolidator, there is sometimes confusion or a misconception regarding what an airline consolidator does.
For clarification purposes, an airline consolidator is a company that has various volume based airfare agreements with one or more airlines. Due to the consolidators productivity and relationships with its carriers, it is able offer to you, the Travel Agent, an opportunity to provide a discount to your retail customer, while at the same time, freeing you from the limited income you are subjected to in issuing International tickets due to limited commissions or in most cases, no commission at all.
One of the most important reasons to utilize consolidator tickets is that you can control the amount of money you are able to make on a ticket. We provide you with net airfares allowing you to determine your own commission by adding a markup of your own choosing. You decide how competitive you wish that fare to be. There may be a published discount sale fare that is as low as or lower than some of our consolidator rates. Consolidators can often issue those tickets on your behalf, but with the advantage that you can still receive a commission level with no caps as compared to no commission if you had issued it yourself.
A flight’s inventory can have numerous airfare discount levels depending on the route and competitive market conditions. These price levels are subject to change by the various carriers depending on a variety of conditions they feel are necessary to review in determining the flight or route’s profitability. Thus, these fares may rise and fall a number of times and may change at the carrier’s discretion, sometimes daily. Therefore, an airfare is only guaranteed after the ticket is purchased.
Sky Bird Travel and most consolidators do not sell directly to the consumer and will not compete with you in the marketplace. Our fares can be accessed through the 4 major Global Distribution Systems (GDS) – Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre or Worldspan, directly through our web site which requires an ARC, IATA or CLIA number, or by calling 1-888-SKY BIRD (759-2473) and giving us your agency information. You are our partners, not our competitors.
Sky Bird Travel is entering its 27th year in business. We are a worldwide consolidator covering all of the continents on the globe from all points in the U.S. and are a participating member of USACA. For more information on our programs as well as money making suggestions, e-mail Sal Prezioso, Director of Sales and Special Projects at sal@skybird-travel.com. Our nationwide reservations number is 1-888-SKY-BIRD (759-2473).