Originally Posted by YOWkid
Um, I'm no lawyer, but I highly doubt this. They are the provider of transportation and the contract is done with them (hence the rules on the IATA ticket).
I think they are just being lazy arses. There should always be a supervisor available -- or at least they should offer that a supervisor will call back. Anything less is unacceptable for a so-called world airline.
Travel agents are not called AGENTS for nothing. When you book a scheduled flight, your contract is with the carrier. The agent issues the ticket "on behalf of" the carrier, and the payment for the ticket goes straight to the carrier.
There may also be a contract with the TA to provide certain ancillary services (and the airlines in their current cost-cutting mode like to remind passengers of that rather too often IMHO). But none of that should cause the airline to abrogate their own duties towards the paying passenger. After all it is BMI, not the agent, who will get the major part of the revenue here.
I hope the above experience is not the result of BMI's new call centre (there were plans to outsource the call centre function).