Scamster makes 389% profit margin selling official travel tickets to Members of Parliament

by Devesh Agarwal

A ticket bought for Rs. 17,270 was sold to the Rajya Sabha secretariat for Rs. 67,270, a 389% mark-up!!

We regularly hear either the Minister of Civil Aviation, Mr. Ajit Singh, or the Director General of Civil Aviation, Mr. Mishra, calling for airlines to curb their fares and not indulge in price gouging.

One has to wonder what will be their reaction to this news report by Saurabh Sinha in the Times of India. The Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian parliament) secretariat was informed of a potential scam when a RS Member of Parliament (MP) found some extreme prices on his air ticket and lodged a formal complaint.

The secretariat paid Rs 99,292 for a one-way Delhi-Chennai flight on Jet Airways for Ashk Ali Tak, a Congress RS member from Rajasthan. A Chennai-Hyderabad ticket on Air India was bought for Rs 35,184. A Hyderabad-Bangalore journey on Jet and a Bangalore-Jaipur ticket on low cost IndiGo 'cost' Rs 67,270 and Rs 17,270, respectively.

The DGCA, on investigating with the various airlines, found

"Jet Airways said it got Rs 39,292 from the agent for the Delhi-Chennai ticket which was sold to the RS Secretariat by the latter for a whopping for Rs 99,292; and Rs 17,270 for the Hyderabad-Bangalore ticket that was 'bought' for Rs 67,270. AI said it got Rs 4,484 for the Chennai-Hyderabad ticket which was bought for Rs 35,184. IndiGo said it got Rs 8,910 for the Bangalore-Jaipur ticket that was bought for Rs 38,410,"

A 300% mark-up!!! on business class fares? All on the tax-payers' Rupees??

Why is the Government going to private ticket agents, when it has a fully owned and well functioning on-line travel agent (OTA) called Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which also sells flight tickets?

And while we are on the question of fares, why is the RS MP flying Business Class on yours and my Rupees? That too at a time of the government raising prices and taxes to improve its collections?

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Travel advisory: Bangkok airport duty free scam

The BBC reports

"Now new allegations have been made that a number of passengers are being detained every month in the duty free area on suspicion of shoplifting, and then held by the police until they pay large sums of money to buy their freedom."

and goes on to describe how the scam works on its website, and includes a story of how two British visitors were allegedly victimized, a story first reported by The Times newspaper back on June 28th.

This is not a new scam. Back in April, an Indian traveller was detained in Bangkok in very similar circumstances for allegedly stealing a box of cigarettes from a duty-free shop at Bangkok International Airport. While in jail, his relatives requested help from the Indian Embassy but were told the embassy was unable to assist. He had to pay almost $1,000 to secure his release.

Apparently the scam now called ZigZag, has being victimising many Asians regularly, and letters and phone calls to the Thai authorities are routinely ignored. Now that the scam has hit a few western travellers, the pot has boiled over.

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