BREWER – The phones and fax machines at Alpine Travel Services are nowhere near as busy as they were at this time last year, but they are starting to pick up.

Owner Jeannette Arnold said she’s now getting calls from new customers every other day.

The callers – many of whom are referred by longtime customers – are keeping Arnold and her one remaining sales agent in business in the wake of fewer post-Sept. 11 travelers and in spite of a March decision by all major U.S. airlines to stop paying commissions to travel agents, she said.

The airlines began capping travel agent commissions seven years ago, decreasing the 10 percent payment on the base price of a ticket to 8 percent and then to 5 percent before finally canceling them altogether.

As commissions dropped, Arnold scaled back her travel agency, reducing her staff from six to one over the last few years and shutting down her original office in Milbridge last year. The one agent she has left works out of her home in Cherryfield.

And like most of the just over 18,000 travel agencies nationwide, Alpine Travel now charges clients a service fee.

“The charges vary from agency to agency,” Arnold said. “Most [agencies] charge a flat rate, but some are charging what they would have received as a commission from the airlines.”

Arnold, who has been in the business for 17 years, said the flat fee of $20 per ticket her agency charges is nowhere near what she used to get in commissions.

Delta was the first airline to take away the commissions – sending agents a March 14 memo that said “this is not open to discussion,” Arnold said. The other domestic airline companies followed “like dominos,” she said.

The idea is to push travelers to the Internet to purchase their tickets, allowing the airlines to close their large reservation centers, she said.

“Each center could have 100 employees, and if you can close one down you’re saving a lot of money,” she said.

Bonnie Adams, owner of Lewiston Travel and the New England spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents Inc., said Maine’s approximately 100 travel agencies have been particularly hurt by the loss in commissions, especially since fewer people have been traveling because of the terrorist attacks last fall.

Travel agencies in Maine are small businesses, Adams said, and some – like one agency in her own community that closed its doors last month after 50 years in operation – just decided they could no longer make it.

The good news is that Mainers are traveling again, she said. Many are choosing Europe and North America for their summer vacations rather than more exotic destinations.

“We’re seeing an abnormal amount of interest in the United Kingdom – Scotland, Wales and Ireland,” Adams said.

California – always a favorite destination for Maine people – and the Canadian Rockies and Vancouver, British Columbia, also are attractive this summer, she said.

“We’re seeing a lot of soft adventure – bike tours and kayaking trips,” she said.

But business remains down from where it was before the terrorist attacks, she said. Reservations came to an abrupt halt after Sept. 11, prompting airlines to reduce their flights by 25 percent, Adams said. Those lost seats aren’t going to come back, making connections for both business and leisure travelers more difficult and, at times, impossible, she said.

And it isn’t just the airlines that have scaled back, Adams said. Many car rental companies have cut their fleets in half.

But Arnold said that despite those difficulties and the fact the travel industry is a much harder business than it was just a few years ago, she still believes anyone who is willing to spend the time and put in the effort can make money at it.

“I can buy a ticket from a consolidator and save someone $200 on a trip to Europe or $600 on the Orient and still make money,” she said.

But finding a ticket can take hours and many people don’t have the patience for the detail work travel requires, she said. There are many variables that influence ticket prices, Arnold said.

“You’re looking at one day, one flight, one airline – and sometimes one hour – that will make hundreds of dollars’ worth of difference,” she said. “And you can work at that for hours and hours and have someone tell you they’ve decided not to go.”

In 1985, when Alpine Travel opened its doors in Milbridge, Arnold said she could turn on her computer and simply compare fares among airlines. Carriers had periodic sales, but that was about it for variations in ticket prices, she said.

Now, in addition to checking airfares on the computer, Arnold calls consolidators – companies that purchase tickets in bulk. There are “tons of consolidators, she said, and they specialize – some doing just domestic travel, while others target trips to Europe or South America.

Agents also consult the Internet – another time-consuming task, she said.

“Anyone who tells you they got a great deal on the Internet probably spent hours and hours,” she said.

Recognizing a good deal for a customer also requires an understanding of what a fare should be, she said. Sometimes people decide in January that they want to go somewhere in September, but January may not be the best time to book that flight, she said.

“It’s like the stock market,” Arnold said. “There’s a time to buy stock and there’s a time not to buy stock. Sometimes it’s better to wait and sometimes it’s not.”

Thrown into the mix are the various airports a traveler can fly from, she said. A flight from Bangor to San Francisco can cost $669 plus tax when there isn’t a sale, while someone who is willing to drive to the airport in Manchester, N.H., can make the trip for $198 plus tax, she said.

Airlines, which set those prices, may say their fares are going down, but that isn’t true across the board, she said. Frequently, the reduced fares are only available in major markets, she said.

“There are so many fares – so many prices,” Arnold said. “It’s a lot of work, but in good conscience I can’t sell someone a ticket without telling them if I think it’s overpriced.”

That can mean not making a sale, but sometimes the customer appreciates the candor and it results in getting a person’s business six months down the road, she said.

“Travel is a crazy, crazy business,” Arnold said. Since pay is based on sales, “you can’t say you’ll have $300 a week to live on. You have to be a salesperson and you have to be able to take rejection.”

Arnold also said she has never seen about half of her customers because much of her business is conducted by phone, fax or e-mail.

“But if you do the job right, it’s almost like you’re going with them,” she said.

The American Society of Travel Agents Inc. estimates that 70 percent of all airline tickets are sold by travel agents, but those estimates pre-date Sept. 11.

Adams said there have been consolidations and mergers nation-wide, but the society hasn’t compiled those figures. She said that nationwide, the average travel agency employs six people and 82 percent of the work force is women.

Merging with another company doesn’t appeal to Arnold, who said she doesn’t like having a partner, preferring her current arrangement of just herself and one outside sales agent.

Travel consultants now are telling agents to develop niche markets, such as golfers or seniors, Arnold said, but that is difficult to do in Maine because there aren’t enough people to make those niches profitable.

Another idea being touted by the industry involves creating consortiums of travel agencies, tour companies, cruise lines, hotels and car rental agencies that can use the power of the group to negotiate discounts, she said.

“Travel is going the way a lot of other businesses in this country are going,” she said. “I really believe we’re headed for a future where everything is consolidated. We’re moving to the one.”