"The absence of transaction fee will lead to massive

unemployment as all costs are borne out of such fees," TAAI president Iqbal Mulla said. The associations have already held talks with aviation ministry officials including the minister Ajit Singh, tourism secretary besides meeting Air India and Jet management on the issue, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) Zubair Ahmad said. "The minister had told us that he would get back to us by today (February 11) but we are yet to hear anything from him," Ahmad said. Earlier the airlines used to remunerate travel agents for selling, handling, processing and servicing passengers on behalf of them. However, in 2008 when recession set, 16 major airlines, including Air India, and Jet Airways among others had abolished travel agents commissions to cut costs. But after protest and boycott threats, domestic carriers gave in to the demand for commission, allowing them to charge three percent on the base fare. Last year, Air India, along with Jet had introduced a hybrid module of one per cent commission and fixed transaction fee on the domestic and international routes to compensate for the reduced amount of commission.