Open to all: Introducing the TTG archive

It’s March 1969 and just five days after Concorde’s first test flight. The aircraft was not to enter commercial service for another seven years but it was already proving controversial. “Even now there is still a chance it will receive the political axe before it enters airline service,” reported TTG, with the industry fearing Iata would impose a “supersonic surcharge” on Concorde that would price it out of most people’s reach.

Less than a month after airline Court Line failed, leaving 35,000 passengers stranded abroad and too few funds for the 100,000 booked to fly, movement was under way for a scheme that would guarantee public financial protection if a travel firm collapsed. The Air Travel Reserve Fund was to be introduced, forerunner to the Air Travel Trust Fund, with Atol holders later required to contribute 2% of their turnover to it.

Much of the reporting in the 1980s and 1990s covered internal wrangling at Abta and other industry bodies, and this front page was typical of the era. With president Jack Smith pulling warring factions together to silence “scaremongers”, the spat dominated other stories of the day – including the launch of a new TTG Travel Awards trophy, and a very curious picture story from the Ramada Renaissance Hotel in Brighton.

TTG, now a red-top, spoke up for travel agents everywhere with this front page. Not only was the airline slashing commission from 9% to 7% to erode its £500 million annual commission bill to agents, it was launching a new no-frills, direct-sell airline, Go. Never one for an understatement, Abta president Steven Freudmann declared of BA chief Robert Ayling “this could be the final nail in his coffin”.

There was only one story in September 2001, and in many of the weeks that followed. The devastation wreaked in New York had an instant effect on travel, with planes grounded, sales slumping and thousands losing their jobs. “The rules that applied to the travel industry prior to 9/11 have been swept aside,” commented editor Phil Davies. “We must now learn to expect the unexpected.” Sounds familiar.

Travel agents were forced to work at home as global pandemic Covid-19 took hold, devastating the travel industry worldwide in a way that dwarfed anything else that occurred in TTG’s 67-year history. Travel sales collapsed, resulting in TTG’s #SaveTravel campaign. What happens next is hard to predict, but one thing for certain is that TTG will continue to report it, daily on ttgmedia.com and via the new monthly TTG in print.