The CEO of Continetal airlines recently stated that the current model between the airlines and travel agents is broken and needs to be fixed. The reality is 9/11 showed that the airlines can't survive without travel agents and travel agents can't survive with little or zero commissions.

He is proposing that all airlines take commissions down to zero and the airlines would charge all customers buying tickets from the airlines a transaction fee of anywhere bewtween $20 and $50 per ticket. This would level the playing field, restore some revenue to the agency community and add some profit to the airlines.