The Unfriendly Skies : Air-Fare Plunge, Run on Tickets Overwhelm Travel Agents

By 2 p.m. Friday, the joke was already older than the morning’s corn flakes: What has short tempers, mountains of paperwork, screaming employees, a fistfight or two and being put on hold so long that you could hear Beethoven’s entire Fifth Symphony on the telephone?

Your travel agent’s office!

Friday, gridlock would have been more fun. A complete collapse of a city’s infrastructure would not have been much worse. At least, that’s how it felt. Travel agents who have toiled at the business for 15 years called Friday, in the words of one, “the absolute rock bottom.”

Friday, for the hermits or agoraphobics who have not yet heard, was the last day to buy tickets at what word of mouth suggested were the low, low, lowest prices in years! You had until midnight to secure the most super of all super-saver fares, and obviously, you took advantage.

San Diego County travel agents from San Marcos to San Carlos, from Horton Plaza to the farthest suburbs, all recited the same sad song and verse: It was, by far, the most overworked they had ever been, with precious little recompense.

Stress was so common that screaming and throwing things, not to mention hours of gallows humor, became commonplace occurrences in the normally demure suites where travel agents ply their trade.

Last week, Northwest Air Lines announced a cut-rate fare in which an adult could fly free with a child for the price of the child’s ticket. Other airlines jumped on the bandwagon, and, by the end of the week, the bandwagon was ready to break under the weight.

American, United and Delta airlines announced some of their lowest fares in years. Just about everybody wanted a piece of the low-cost action, which offered round trips from San Diego to New York City for $190. Other destinations were even cheaper. San Diego to Los Angeles was $35 round trip, for the first time in an eon.

Jim Petranoff, the owner of Laurel Travel near Lindbergh Field, said much of the craziness got started when passengers who were ticketed months ago, whether for business or pleasure trips, suddenly wanted refunds.

Like many agents, Petranoff envisioned thousands of dollars of refunds with no guarantee that the original commissions would ever be honored. By Friday, the airlines had promised to honor the earlier commissions, although some agents were so suspicious that they wanted the commitment in writing.

“It has been very hectic, chaotic . . .” Petranoff said Friday at noon. “We’ve been here from 7 in the morning until midnight every night. We’ve issued three times as many tickets as we normally do. Right now, I have a dozen people working overtime, and we still can’t keep up.”

Raymond Hoobler, owner of Mission Hills Travel on West Washington Street, said the onslaught brought on by the June price war was “totally unanticipated.” Hoobler said the stress was the worst he had seen in five years in the business.

“It’s been totally chaotic,” he said. “We’re doing refunds like you can’t believe. People who booked back in April for travel in July have called up, demanding the new fare. And the stress is unbelievable.

“The computers went down this morning. A couple of days ago the computer we verify credit cards with--it crashed too. So now, we’re doing that part telephonically. It’s very stressful on the girls who work here. Very stressful. We’re also writing out a lot of tickets by hand.”

One North County travel agent, who asked not to be quoted by name, said a fistfight broke out between the manager and an irate male client who felt he wasn’t getting prompt service.

A travel agent who manages an agency in downtown San Diego said the situation was “the absolute worst” in her 15 years in the business. Saturday and Sunday shifts, for two weeks in a row, 13 hours at a stretch, were a sudden, grim reality.

“Ordinarily, I would give you my name, but we’re actually talking about a class-action suit against the airlines,” she said. “We’re going to write letter after letter complaining about this. I personally am getting an ulcer over it.

“Right now, it’s 11 in the morning, and we’ve been here for almost five hours. All five computers are down. The United Air Lines computers are completely down, and we’re told they may not come back up. At American, they’ve been up and down all day.

“These low fares have completely overloaded the system and are on the verge of collapsing it. The morons who thought of this never thought the extra capacity would do this, which infuriates me most of all. They never considered the consequences of any of this.”

The agent said that an individual calling the airline on his own Friday could expect an average wait of three to four hours--if he didn’t get a busy signal.

Getting beyond the busy signal was, she said, a major achievement.

An Encinitas man who asked not to be quoted by name said he called American Airlines for four days straight. He finally got through at 6 a.m. Sunday but lost the connection when he put the phone down to make breakfast for his kids.

“They hung up on me!” he said.

He then went to the airline’s office in Encinitas, where the computers were down. About an hour later, he got his refund, cutting the price of three round-trip tickets from San Diego to New York in half--a savings of $570.

“It was worth it,” he said.

Carina Puleo, whose father owns Alcala Travel in San Carlos, said every agent she knows has been working essentially the same hours--from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week, with everyone hopelessly far behind.

“It’s been absolutely crazy,” Puleo said. “We’ve sold hundreds and hundreds of tickets. And now, we’re running out of ticket stock.”

Puleo said tempers were extremely short.

“One lady sat at my desk and said suddenly, ‘Well, if you don’t want to help me! You hate me, don’t you? That’s it, you hate me!’ I had to tell her I didn’t hate her, that it would just take time. I don’t hate anybody, people just have to understand.”

“We’re doing four and five times the work for half the price,” she said. “It’s just unreal. Everybody is getting crazy. Bad feelings, bad tempers. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The crunch has at least one overworked travel agent thinking about finding a new line of work.

“I’m getting out,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous. “I don’t need this. This is no way to live your life. What a crazy, crazy business.”

Bud McDonald, the manager of Lindbergh Field, said long lines had become commonplace at airline ticket counters, especially those at American, Delta and United. But McDonald said the real crunch--and the one he fears--will come in July and August “when everyone starts cashing in those tickets for airline seats.”

McDonald said the volume of travel is expected to be the highest in the history of the airline industry.

“On an average day in August, we handle 40,000 passengers. But, if they all bring a visitor, well, you see what will happen,” he said. “I think it’s going to make for a phenomenally busy July and August.”

He said the average load factor is expected to be 80% during the period leading up to Sept. 13, when most of the low, low fares expire.

“Eighty percent might not sound like a big number to the average guy, but to us, it’s outrageously high,” McDonald said. “That means you have some days when the average load is 60%, but to average 80%, that means some of the load factors are already slotted at 100%.”

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