<< Back 9/11/02 Travel agencies cope with a changing industry By David Teague Next week, Alisa Ashe, executive director of Kid’s Place in Macon County, will set out by car for a daylong drive to a conference in Orlando, Fla. She could have flown, but for someone who never liked flying much anyway, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of a year ago are reason enough to choose caution over convenience. “It’s almost like some of your worst fears were realized, so you have to stop and think,” Ashe said. “If this meeting had been further, I’d be flying, but with the long waits now and having to change planes, it would take you about all day to get there.” Barbie and Don Stanton, of Lake Junaluska, have traveled often since Sept. 11, by plane and car, and have actually appreciated the extra airport security, even when Barbie had to take off her shoes so they could be tested for gun powder. “We travel a lot to see family or for our own pleasure,” said Don Stanton, a retired college president from Atlanta. “We feel it’s a great way to learn things. We’ve noticed greatly increased airport security, for which we’re grateful, really.” Like the rest of the nation, flyers in Western North Carolina are having mixed reactions to flying since the terrorist attacks, but most say they don’t expect their tentativeness to last. That’s good news for airlines and travel agents, both of which are still reeling from the economic shockwaves set off by the attacks. “It has been very difficult,” said Caroline Russell, a travel consultant with Gray Travel in Bryson City. “The entire industry is about half of what it was.” The loss of business immediately after Sept. 11 was dramatic. In a letter to President Bush last October, Richard M. Copeland, president and chief executive officer of the American Society of Travel Agents, pleaded for government help to stem the flow of red ink. “Between Sept. 11 and Sept. 17, 2001, travel agencies lost an estimated $440 million due to the virtually total cessation of new sales and the recall by airlines of more than $70 million in air commissions earned on pre-Sept. 11 sales,” Copeland wrote. “ASTA estimates total losses for all product lines at $1.36 billion for the four weeks following the attack.” Western North Carolina travel agents say the fallout from those losses has been felt throughout the industry and has resulted in a number of travel-related businesses going under. “We’ve been faced with a couple of different cruise lines that went bankrupt, car rentals that went bankrupt, and airlines faced with difficulties,” said Joy Lindsey, co-owner and manager of Super Holiday Travel in Waynesville. The news has not gotten better for airlines or travel agents as the year progressed. In the last few months, American Airlines has announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs and spread flights more evenly in an effort to cut costs by $1 billion. In addition, U.S. Airways filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and there is speculation that United Airlines, America’s second largest airline, could soon follow suit. Even before Sept. 11, travel agents had taken a blow when the airlines stopped paying them commissions for the tickets they booked. In addition, many have felt the impact of the Internet and potential customers taking more responsibility on themselves to plan their travel. “Travel agencies are struggling to survive, that’s the given fact right now,” said Lindsey. While no one knew of any WNC travel agencies that had closed as a result of Sept. 11, several are having to do with less staff and many have had to make financial sacrifices. Super Holiday Travel is down two staff positions, and other agencies have made similar cuts. “At any given time we had 3.5 employees in here,” said Linda Fleck, co-owner of Fantasy Travel in Sylva, which is now down to two employees. “Now, in the last two years, there’s just no way. We have to struggle to employ ourselves and we’ve had to make sacrifices ourselves. We’ve drastically cut anything we take out of here. In my case, that’s my sole support.” But travel agents are not ready to give up the fight yet. Many are exploring new ways of doing business that focuses more on cruises and tours. As the airlines continue to regain their economic balance, some travel agents are wondering if they should continue to do airline tickets at all. “It’s a big question a lot of times as to do we continue to even do airline tickets,” said Fleck. “That used to be our bread and butter, now we don’t make enough on them and even charging a fee to our customers, we can’t make enough on them. We have to depend on other sources of income, like cruises and tours. Cruising has been very popular, especially homeland cruising — New England, anything out of Charleston, and more people are driving to the ports.” In the ASTA’s letter to President Bush, Copeland asked for an economic stimulus package that would help travel agents. Such a package has not been passed, and area travel agents say they aren’t holding their breath. Any help that does come will likely go to the airlines, anyway, agents said. The best thing that could happen to the industry right now, they said, is for the economy to stabilize. Several polls have indicated that many people now have gotten over their fear of flying but are still choosing not to travel for economic reasons. “I think that's a lot of it,” said Russell. “About 50 percent of my clients tell me it’s fear and about 50 percent tell me it’s economic reasons.” While most agents say it is too early to tell whether fall and holiday travel will pull the industry out of the economic doldrums, some are starting to see improvement in business, which gives them hope for the new year. In addition, they believe some of their customers have gotten over their initial thrill with using the Internet and are coming back to travel agents to help them sort through the deluge of information. “I think Americans are going through a stage in life where they want to have more control, but I’ve had a lot of clients say I spent all night trying to figure out something,” Russell said. “There’s so much on the Internet and you don’t know which companies are good and which ones are bad. If I was someone else and not a travel agent, there’s no way I’d waste my time and try to figure out all that.” Even with all the industry changes, agents say they still provide something of value to customers. “We have access not only to all the web sites, but to central reservations systems which have all airline fares,” Lindsey said. “We look at everybody for everyone. We are still able to decipher all the information, stay up on the trends and know what companies are stable and which ones are not. I believe the travel industry is slowly coming back around and I still feel we have a place.”