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Message: [QUOTE="Munyaradzi Mafaro, post: 51599, member: 636"] Travel industry bosses demanded authorities crush airline ticket cartels that have pushed airfares beyond working families' reach. The Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh accused shadowy groups of rigging seat availability on popular Middle Eastern routes. Criminal syndicates team up with dishonest airlines and corrupt agents to create fake shortages that jack up prices. Routes to Riyadh, Jeddah, Madinah and Dammam became goldmines for these ticket manipulators. Migrant workers and ordinary passengers suffer while crooks pocket massive profits. Ticket prices exploded between December and February when group bookings hit nearly 100,000 taka and system rates climbed to 180,000 taka. Aviation ministry officials tried fighting back with new rules requiring passenger names and passport copies for all bookings. The February directive briefly cooled down runaway prices before airlines found sneaky workarounds. Egypt Air, Saudia and budget carriers started booking seats under fake names then switching them before departure. Criminal networks grabbed these tickets and resold them at outrageous markups. Foreign agencies receive bulk reservations without passenger details and dump them through local crime rings. These operations smuggle money overseas through underground channels that drain the national economy. Major carriers slashed their weekly flights compared to last year while Salam Air stopped flying altogether. Qatar Airways, Jazeera Airways and Air Arabia cut services that strangled seat supply even further. ATAB Secretary General Afsia Jannat Saleh warned that weak enforcement lets ticket mafias destroy market fairness and hurt aviation credibility. [/QUOTE]

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