Airline Sales and Service Agents

HOW TO GET THERE

Typical pathway

A typical pathway starts with finishing secondary school and taking courses that build English, math, geography, and computer skills. Many employers look for strong customer service and communication ability, so part-time work in retail, tourism, food service, or other front-line jobs can help. Some people also learn on the job through airline or airport training, where they practice booking, check-in, baggage handling, boarding, and reservation systems. Requirements can vary by employer, province, and role, and some positions may prefer prior office or travel-related experience.

THE WORK

What you may do

Legacy duties

• Airline passenger and ticket agents help customers plan travel time and routes, prepare and issue tickets, assign seats, prepare boarding passes, check baggage, attend boarding gates, assist pre-boarding passengers and provide information on fares and flight schedules and routes.
• Airline baggage agents trace lost, delayed or misdirected baggage for customers.
• Airline cargo agents weigh cargo and compute freight costs, calculate charges for services and insurance, process bills of lading, cargo manifests and other documents, trace lost or misdirected cargo and maintain shipping and other records.
• Airline reservation agents reserve seats for tour companies, travel agencies, wholesalers and the general public using computerized systems, provide information on airline passengers and process mileage points.
• Airline station agents complete pre-flight documents regarding passenger and cargo load, catering count, special requests and other flight information and relay operational messages to operations control and downline stations. They also perform duties of ticket, baggage and cargo agents.
• Airline load planners calculate load weights for compartments of aircraft using charts and computers and plan load to distribute and balance cargo.

SKILLS TO BUILD

Skills used in this Career