Review: Southall Travel (Also Travel Trolley and Fly Sharp)

Travel agent Southall Travel's retail branch in Southall, UK

Southall Travel, founded more than 30 years ago in the borough of Southall, UK to predominantly cater to the local Asian population, reported a revenue of a whopping £336 million in 2014, up 19% from the previous year. Immensely popular among the local Asian residents, Southall Travel has seen meteoric success in the niche UK Asian travel market to become one of UK’s largest travel agents today.

It is predominantly used by Indians living in the UK who make frequent trips to their hometowns in India. More often, these travelers have special requirements such as additional baggage allowances, specific airline choices, route preferences, or non-flexible dates and Southall Travel is able to meet all these requirements. Most Indians that use them on a regular basis vouch for its service quality and competitive pricing.

But it is leaving many Generation-Y, online-savvy Indian travelers bemused. While the official Southall Travel website allows users to run flight searches and offers secure online booking services, it urges users to “Call to book”  to avail “special fares it is unable to promote online”.

But its strategy goes beyond that.

One customer reported to us that a flight search on Kayak.com, a travel search engine, yielded results with very attractive fares from two websites – Travel Trolley and Fly Sharp, among others.

Although, both Travel Trolley and Fly Sharp look like independent websites, they are both part of Southall Travel Group.

When the user proceeded with their flight choice on Fly Sharp, they were prompted to share their booking details and proceed with their payment online. Once the user filled in all payment details and hit the “Confirm” button, they got an error message with a booking reference number and an 0845 number helpline. When contacted, Fly Sharp's helpline assistant confirmed that the payment had not gone through but the user’s booking details were collected. The assistant then ran a quick search for prices and told the user the fares he had originally booked were not available anymore but he can help the user book tickets for slightly higher fares. Reluctant to proceed with a more expensive booking, the user ended the call.

But another instance of online search on Kayak for the same travel requirements yielded the original attractive fares yet again. This may be Southall Travel's tactic to attract more customers, a majority of whom may proceed with slightly more expensive tickets. While IndiaNewsBulletin is not alluding that the fares displayed are untrue, it is possible that only a handful of seats are sold at those prices.