Oct. 31: Big airlines have decided to impose a transaction fee of Rs 350 for economy class and Rs 500 for business class on Web tickets, which had so far been free of the charge.

The move is aimed at pricing Net tickets on a par with those issued by travel agents, whom airlines will not pay any commission from tomorrow in a move that could force them to charge a transaction fee from customers.

The Iata Agents Association of India said it would not issue tickets of 16 airlines, including Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher, from tomorrow in protest against the decision by the airlines to stop paying commission.

The association said one lakh travel agencies were facing closure because of the airlines’ decision.

Around 20 per cent of bookings are made on airline websites or on those of travel search engines like Kayak and Ixigo, which, too, don’t charge a transaction fee.

Another 15 per cent is made through travel portals like yatra.com or makemytrip.com, which were paid commissions so far.

Air India will start charging the fee on its Web tickets from tomorrow. “Passengers will have to pay the fee for purchasing tickets from the airline office or website from tomorrow,” an Air India spokesperson said.

Jet Airways officials said the fee would kick in after 10 days. “However, there will be no commission for portals as they are considered travel operators,” an official said.

Low-cost carriers like SpiceJet and IndiGo will possibly be the only ones not to charge the fee and raise fares as they have traditionally sold most tickets on the Internet.

Key airlines have tried to keep Web tickets free of the extra charge but industry sources said they had to concede to the demand of travel agents, who sell 65 per cent of their tickets, in the face of threats to stop bookings.

Ten major airlines, including Air India, Jet and Kingfisher, will end travel agents’ commissions, as will foreign carriers like Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa. However, British Airways and Emirates will continue to pay the agents.

Singapore Airlines’ Net tickets will not have the transaction fee. “The fee will be charged only on tickets bought from our counters, not on those that are taken from our website as it is a self-help service,” an official said.

The airline has left it to travel agents to charge customers any transaction fee they wish or not to, he added.

However, the ambiguity appears loaded against customers.

“There has been no uniform decision on transaction fees between Iata (the International Air Transport Association) agents. We will charge fees as we feel appropriate,” said Anil Punjabi, chairman (east) of the Travel Agents Federation of India.