Tour operators are asking for solutions against the abuses of low cost

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The confrontation – clash between tour operators and low cost airlines does not stop, with the former complaining of a series of inefficiencies and problems, including unjustified ticket increases, flight and route cancellations. “Some low-cost airlines hold the Italian skies hostage, do not cooperate with the tourism chain, starting with tour operators and travel agencies, monopolize airports and routes with often schizophrenic and unpredictable policies on flights and times – says Gabriele Milani, director of the Organized Tourism Federation of Confcommercio -. In addition, they are raising prices in a completely unjustified way compared to costs, starting with fuel, which is 38% lower than a year ago. This is why we have also started a dialogue with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport to try to find solutions to a situation that does not help the revitalization of the tourism sector and of the country as a whole”. Milani met at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (MIT) with the staff of Deputy Minister Galeazzo Bignami, who heads the delegation for air transport, explaining the difficulties and problems encountered by travel agents and tour operators in organizing flights for customers . «We found an attentive and sensitive interlocution to which we asked for the opening of a table that brings together the two ministries concerned, Tourism and Transport, the Regions, the low cost carriers and the associations of the tourism sector. It is necessary to study interventions that re-establish a physiology of the market – concludes Milani – and allow the operators to program the offer in a reliable way for the benefit of the customers». The problem is age-old and every year the situation seems to get worse. For some time Franco Gattinoni, president of FTO, has complained about the behavior of low cost carriers who in some cases decide to suspend flights. This is what Ryanair did by canceling the Sicilian airport of Comiso from its routes, while the possibility of managing some routes exclusively allows low-cost airlines to charge fares that have nothing low. In a dossier prepared by Fto it emerges how low cost airlines have a monopoly of the skies in Italy: almost two thirds are the prerogative of Ryanair, the rest belong to EasyJet, Wizz Air, Volotea. According to travel agents, it is the highest share in Europe, where the average of flights operated by low cost companies equals 32.5% and in Germany it does not exceed 28%. In this context, low-cost carriers impose “stellar” fares for short-haul flights such as, for example, those between Rome and Sicily where at Easter tickets exceeded one thousand euros, almost as much as an intercontinental route. «Travel agencies – asks Gattinoni – must be recognized as interlocutors by low cost companies exactly like individual passengers, also considering the fact that they do not apply any price increase to their customers, if anything, in a transparent manner and separately from the transaction relating to the purchase of the ticket, ask for the recognition of a minimum fee for the service”.