NATTA held a Joint Meeting with Airlines and Executive Members of NATTA at Hotel Shangri-La on 29th August 2018. Introduced by Secretary General Mr. Ramesh Thapa on outline of the Joint Meeting, meeting was well-attended by almost all the country managers of major airlines operating in Nepal. Mr. CN Pandey, NATTA President chaired the meeting and spoke about the objective of the meeting envisaging the importance of mutual support and co-operation between NATTA and Airlines.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the current issues in the aviation industry along with its solutions facilitating for aviation, tourism industry and prominently NATTA Members.
Secy General & Chairman of APJC Committee Mr. Ramesh Thapa and Executive Member & Chairman of IATA & Aviation Committee Mr. Ramesh Paudel reflected on below issues as per suggestion and feedback received from NATTA Members:
GDS: Travel agencies (IATA/Non IATA) having legally completed procedures according to Nepal Government Act should have full-fledged facility for booking of all airlines.
Differential Fares to Agents: Equal fares should be displayed to all the agents
Capping: Agencies affiliated with IATA must have facilitation of capping
Airlines Counter Sales: If airlines provide the counter sales then they must add service charge on their regular fares promoting the agents
Communication Flow of Airlines: Airlines should share their promotional schemes, schedules, STPC, ADM etc. to all the agents.
Joint Promotion with Tourism: NATTA requested all international airlines for supporting in Joint Promotion such as B2B programs, Roadshows promoting inbound and outbound tourism in coordination of NTB.
Deportee /Inadmissible Passengers: NATTA is receiving lots of concerns regarding this issue. According to IATA, the cost of deportee is to be beared by passenger.
Taking note of the issues addressed in the meeting, Airlines were optimistic in most of the issues. However in some of the points, they were positive to prepare a mechanism to solve the matters. On one of the issue, they urged the travel agents to strongly check the visas of passengers before issuing the tickets.
The airliners unanimously assured that there is mutual relation between Agents and Airlines and both will work together for betterment of tourism industry.
Some of the issues in common severely raised by Airlines such as constrains caused by the limited parking bays at TIA, high landing/parking charges, issues of improper ground handling, fuel, immigration etc. They have requested to solve such issues, which will also support to achieve the targeted 20 million tourist for visit Nepal 2020.
The meeting concluded with a resolution that soon NATTA would be calling a similar meeting involving the participation of officials from the Ministry of Culture, Tourism & Civil Aviation (MoCTCA), and Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), Tribhuvan Int’l Airport (TIA), Airlines and concerned authorities. Chairman of the meeting appreciated the international airlines’ for their frank remarks and suggestions for the improvement of aviation sector of Nepal.
Secretary General Mr. Thapa gave the vote of thanks for their active and most fruitful opinions expressed in the meeting. Airlines’ present on the occasion were: Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Indigo, Fly Dubai, Air Arabia, Air Asia, Jet Airways, Himalaya Airlines, Sichuan Airlines and Air China.
