Airline Ticket and Service Agents

Nature of work

Airline ticket and service agents issue tickets, provide price quotes, make reservations, check-in passengers, trace missing baggage, arrange cargo shipments and perform other related customer service duties to help airline passengers. They work for airline companies.

Job duties

Airline passenger and ticket agents:

• Help customers plan travel time and routes, prepare and issue tickets, assign seats, prepare boarding passes, check baggage, attend boarding gates
• Help pre-boarding passengers and provide information on fees and flight schedules and routes.

Airline baggage agents:

• Trace lost, delayed or misdirected baggage for customers.

Airline cargo agents:

• Weigh cargo to compute freight costs, calculate charges for services and insurance, process bills of lading, cargo manifests and other documents.
• Trace lost or misdirected cargo and maintain shipping and other records.

Airline reservation agents:

• Reserve seats for tour companies, travel agencies, wholesalers and the general public using computerized systems.
• Provide information on airline passengers and process mileage points.

Airline station agents:

• Complete pre-flight documents about passenger and cargo load, catering count, special requests and other flight information.
• Relay operational messages to operations control and downline stations.
• Do duties of ticket, baggage and cargo agents.

Airline load planners:

• Calculate load weights for compartments of aircraft using charts and computers.
• Plan load to distribute and balance cargo.

Sample job titles

• airline ticket agent
• baggage tracer
• cargo agent
• check-in agent
• commissary agent
• counter services agent
• flight agent
• load control agent
• load planner
• passenger sales agent
• passenger service representative
• reservation clerk
• station agent

Skills

• You should be poised, organized, tactful, and patient. Interpersonal skills and the ability to deal comfortably with strangers are important. You should be resourceful and able to handle the unexpected. Knowledge of the travel industry will be required. Good communication skills are also necessary. Knowledge of both official languages and an additional language may be required.

Job requirements

• High school is usually required.
• Several weeks of on-the-job and classroom training are provided.
• Airline station agents usually need experience as a ticket, baggage or cargo agent.
• Load planners need a restricted radio operator's licence and usually require airline operations experience.

Other considerations

• The duties of workers in this group may overlap depending on the size of the airline or airport and location of the operations. Movement to supervisor positions is possible with experience. Airline station agents usually need experience as a ticket, baggage or cargo agent as an entry point to the position.

No regulating bodies were found under this occupation profile

Contacts