IATA is giving members another five months to eliminate paper tickets, but several small carriers are concerned there still will not be enough time to put in place interline e-ticketing (IET) agreements.
During its annual general meeting in early June, IATA agreed to extend its e-ticketing deadline from 31 December 2007 to 31 May 2008. The extension followed complaints from smaller members that are struggling to convince larger carriers to implement IET agreements.
"The real issue is some bigger airlines are using IET as an excuse to cut out smaller carriers," says Air Seychelles chairman David Savy. "It's a corporate decision to scrap us. We are a nuisance factor. We don't bring them much revenue, but it is a lot of money for us."
Several small IATA members say US and European carriers are now focusing on forging IET agreements with each other rather than small carriers from undeveloped regions. "Getting them to sign up is a problem," says Rwandair Express chief executive Manzi Kayihura. "They haven't cut us off yet, but we're not a top priority to them. We're at the bottom of the list. This is an issue for small airlines. It sucks being small."
Air Malawi chief executive ABW Mchungula adds African carriers have no problem issuing e-tickets, but "it's the interlines that are the problem". Air Malawi and Rwandair Express say 90% of their passengers connect via interlines.
IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani says it is now asking members to quickly determine what interline agreements they want to migrate to IET. But he acknowledges that only 2,000 to 3,000 of the 8,000 interline agreements that are now in place are expected to be migrated. As for the 5,000 to 6,000 agreements that will be dropped next June, Bisignani says this is a commercial decision by individual airlines.
Savy says IATA has rejected a request from a group of African carriers to create "a virtual airline that will enable IET with larger carriers". However, IATA says it will work to maximise interlining coverage after the deadline passes.
Despite the setback, IATA is claiming victory in its e-ticketing initiative, which was launched at its annual meeting in Singapore in 2004. "When we discussed this in Singapore it was a dream," Bisignani says. "Now we're the first industry to go paperless."
He adds IATA decided to extend the deadline to give more time for those carriers at a disadvantage, such as those in Russia, where e-tickets were illegal until recently. He says IATA's 150 e-ticketing experts will work overtime over the next 11 months to help the final group members go paperless.
As of April, 218 or 80.3% of airlines in its Billing and Settlement Programme were using e-tickets, up from 161 a year ago. IATA head of financial distribution and financial services Tom Murphy says the industry is already 96% e-ticket capable in terms of volume. He adds the real e-ticketing target is not 100% but 96.5% because some carriers do not intend to stop issuing paper tickets.
Source: Airline Business
