‘Why domestic carriers should join IATA BSP platform’

Domestic carriers have been charged to join the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) platform of the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) to propel them to forge code-share agreement with foreign airlines.

The BSP is a platform designed to facilitate and simplify the selling, reporting and remitting procedures of IATA accredited passenger sales agents, as well as improve financial control and cash flow.

The system currently serves more than 370 participating airlines, it was learnt.

With over 30 foreign carriers operating in Nigeria, none of them has a codeshare agreement with any of the eight domestic carriers despite that most of the carriers have passed the International Air Airport Association (IATA) Operational and Safety Audit popularly known as IOSA certification.

The code-share agreement would have allowed the domestic carriers to distribute in-bound passengers conveyed by foreign airlines. But this is not the case at the moment as foreign airlines crave for multiple destinations in major Nigerian cities.

One of the factors that has stymied the growth of most of the aerodromes also is the low capacity of local carriers which are also constrained by few passengers connecting cities.

Experts however believe that the domestic carriers would have had more passengers to carry if multiple destinations had not been conferred on foreign airlines.

Many say there is an “imbalance” in the destinations with some carriers flying to as many as five routes in the country.

“I have written a lot about the imbalance of multiple destinations given to foreign airlines; except this is reduced to maximum of two (either Lagos or Abuja and any other) to the foreign airlines, the domestic airlines cannot prosper beyond 4/5 years lifespan”, aviation expert, John Ojikutu observed.