3 cheers for San Diego victory
Finally, the global body supervising airline- agency relationship – PA Conference – has approved the joint bank guarantee scheme exclusively for India.
It was in San Diego, California in the second week of October that history was created. The recently-concluded IATA's Passenger Agency Conference (PAConf) has approved the joint bank guarantee scheme especially for India - a sore point with Indian travel agents since some time.
The development came about after Christopher Gilbey, Chairman of PAConf, permitted the acting president of Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) – Sunil Kumar – to make a presentation to about 200 airline members where even one negative vote could veto an issue. The scheme is unique to India and was discontinued by IATA effective December 31, 2013. Getting it approved was therefore a huge challenge for TAAI.
Harmandeep Singh Anand, Secretary General, TAAI, said, "It was a 10-minute presentation that included the president taking questions from the airlines with regards to the joint bank guarantee, how the scheme will work, dos and don’ts, and the risk factors involved. They were looking at it from a global perspective and wanted to understand it better. Getting permission to present one's case in such a forum is an exception and extremely rare. The decision has been made specific to the India market that has over 3,000 IATA members. This is a huge success for TAAI and TAFI as associations because both were pursuing the same issue."
Sunil Kumar was attending the PAPGJC (Passenger Agency Programme Global Joint Council) and PAConf as TAAI’s representative. The association had put forth many points of contention to the PAConf, of which the top three were: the joint bank guarantee scheme, acceptance of agents’ corporate credit card, and a one-day payment relief to agents during a long holiday.
Anand said, “TAAI has been running the joint bank guarantee scheme successfully for over 22 years. We now want more of our members to adopt it and get the maximum benefit out of the joint bank guarantee scheme and the diminishing commissions as against the 150-odd members who had participated in it in the past.”
IATA Legal has been asked to review the legal aspects of the scheme and may ask APJC India to create norms and review its working. TAAI will work out the modalities once the legalities of the issue have been whetted by PAConf. Anand expects the scheme to be rolled out to its members by July 1, 2015.
Acceptance of credit card
The credit card resolution that TAAI had put in was vetoed by a single negative vote. “Some of the airlines refused to accept the agents’ corporate credit card. We had requested for an amendment in the rule where airlines could have the option of accepting the card. We are not asking them to remove the resolution but letting the airlines decide if they want to extend that benefit to the agents,” Anand said.
UFTAA’s role in all this
The United Federation of Travel Agents' Associations (UFTAA), of which TAAI is a part, supported the cause and played a huge role in putting it across to the PAConf.
Sunil Kumar is now an UFTAA board member since the last one month. “Generally, it is the president who gets elected as its board of directors. He will start his two-year term as a board member from November second week. The new team will come into effect with the UFTAA Convention that will be held in Bali from November 16-19. This will be his first industry appearance as part of UFTAA,” Anand revealed.