TOUR operators and agents have been given a stay of execution before they are forced to pay a new penalty for failing to report ticket sales electronically.
The International Air Transport Association had planned to charge 70p for every manual Bank Settlement Plan return from April 1, because airlines are unhappy about paying for the manual reports to be processed.
But IATA has now bowed to pressure from companies using systems from suppliers, such as FSS, that have not yet upgraded their software. Alan West, manager IATABSP UK, said:”We don’t want to disadvantage companies for something that is out of their control.”
He said he was currently talking to each of the systems companies affected to agree new deadlines but he stressed that IATAfirst announced its intentions 18 months ago.
John Harding, sales director at Travelscene, one of the operators affected, said:”We are behind this initiative 110%, but we are just asking for a little bit of understanding.”