Globally it has become more difficult for travel agents to sell Kingfisher Airline tickets.
This follows the airline being suspended from IATA Billing and Settlement Plan and Cargo Accounts Settlement System. The suspension is because the airline did not provide IATA with a cash deposit.
“The BSP and CASS programme facilitates and simplify the selling, reporting and remitting procedures between airlines and travel and cargo agents. Suspension from the BSP and CASS means that the airline would not be able to use the two systems to settle their sales with travel and cargo agents. The airline is still free to sell and settle directly with travel agents and freight forwarders,” IATA said in a statement.
Alternative arrangements
In a statement the airline said it has made alternative arrangements to ensure that the customers can continue to book their travel on the airline through select leading travel agents and their network partners.
Passengers can continue to book and purchase tickets either through the airline Web site, its ticketing office and call centres, the airline statement adds.
Freezing of accounts
“This situation has arisen as a consequence of our bank accounts having been frozen by the tax authorities. We are making all possible efforts to remedy this temporary situation” the statement adds.
Cost of selling to go up
Travel agents told Business Line that with the latest suspension the cost of selling the airline tickets will go up. “After the latest suspension a travel agent will have to provide a bank guarantee to the airline to sell its tickets. This increases the cost for the travel agent. Given that the airline has been in the news for all the wrong reasons it remains to be seen how many travel agents will want to continue to sell the airline tickets,” a travel agent said.
Leading travel Web sites including cleartrip were not selling the airline tickets. The airline, however, claimed that tickets were available on all major online travel agents like yatra, Via.com and makemytrip.com.
The latest suspension comes close on the heels of Kingfisher being suspended from IATA International Clearing House on Wednesday for not settling its dues in time. It was the second time in as many months that the airline has been suspended from ICH.
The airline faced more difficulty on Wednesday when HPCL refused to refuel its aircraft across the country unless its dues were cleared.
This resulted in flights getting delayed. The airline, however, managed to meet its financial commitment to HPCL. This helped it get aviation turbine fuel and restart its operations.
On Friday, the airline stock closed at Rs 21.15 on the NSE, up from Rs 21.05 previous day.