The airline ticket agent is an airline company job that deals with selling tickets in an airport. Although the duties may vary but this is the first-on-the-list ticket agents primarily do. The job is highly competitive due to the certification level that is required. A simple diploma will do but the airline companies always prefer those with prior experience.

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Airline companies may post their airline ticket agents in a foreign country to work, unless of course they are the local airline, in this case Nigerian Airways. To obtain this job title there are a few things one has to note.

Requirements for the Job

The job entails that you have at least a diploma certificate, but due to the stiff competition a degree course will be very helpful. Besides that they want an already experienced person on the job or someone with training. If you are new to the job you can always get training at flight schools. There are more than five existing in Nigeria. They majorly train pilots but some of the flight schools especially the FAA approved conduct training for other related airport staff jobs. You can stay a step ahead of the competition by joining.

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The minimum age that can apply is mostly 18 or 20 depending on Airline Company. Prospective airline ticket agents are expected to have a good written and communication skill, somewhere above average. Also knowing a local language is a plus. The communication skill is paramount because you will be relating with customers directly all day.

What You Are Expected To Do

Among the many things an airline ticket agent is expected to do

• Deliver customer service – This is of a high level priority, the ticket agent comes in contact with customers all day long. It is only fitting that he/she has a good customer relationship skills.
• Selling and scanning of tickets – The ticket agent handles the selling of tickets. Sometimes they may find themselves at the boarding gate scanning and collecting them. It is due to this that sometimes ticket agents are referred to as airline gate agents. They also handle assigning of seats at the boarding gate.
• Lifting heavy luggage – Everything the customer needs, it is the duty of the ticket agent to handle including lifting the customer’s luggage to the conveyor belt. Some luggage are heavy and some may contain fragile objects like laptops, so one has to be strong enough and very careful when treating customer luggage.
• Book reservations – It is the duty of the ticket agent to book or cancel reservations. This could be made through a phone call, online or in-person. Their job is usually to confirm it, call up customers to verify and make sure there is no mix up in the matter.

Nature of the Work

The work is STRESSFUL to say the least. Ticket agents can be called in anytime and are expected to work overtime. If there is a bad weather, flights will be cancelled/delayed and angry customers will most likely cool off on the ticket agent. Sometimes reservations get mixed up and all sorts of things happen that the agent cannot simply blame on anyone. So it’s a total chaos working this job even without considering the high noise level of airport environments.

Salary and Payment

Some airline companies prefer to pay hourly and it averaged about N4,400 per hour. For the monthly salary payment it’s averaged globally at about $12,000 dollars for starters, which is about N3.7 million Naira monthly. It all sounds mind boggling but that’s the perk of working for international businesses. Unless you decide to work for the local or regional airports, they pay way less but still, a monthly N300,000 pay check is not an overstatement.