Nairobi –September 23, 2021: The International Air Transport Association (IATA)’s Regional Vice President for Africa and Middle East, Mr. Kamil Al-Awadhi paid a courtesy visit to the Kenya Association of Travel Agents (KATA) to discuss a closer collaboration between IATA and the travel agents in Kenya as an effort to fast track the recovery of Kenya’s aviation and tourism sectors. Al-Awadhi’s visit comes at a time when the Kenya market was migrating to the New Generation of IATA settlement system (NGISS), a system that seeks to modernize the current billing and settlement plan that travel agents are using to settle payments for air tickets to IATA.
Al-Awadhi was received by KATA CEO Ms. Agnes Mucuha and other board representatives. Ms. Mucuha called on IATA to support KATA members with familiarizing with the New Generation of IATA settlement system (NGISS), during this transition period.
Ms. Mucuha also called on IATA to support KATA in conducting professional training for Agents to strengthen their knowledge and skills and accelerate the digitalisation of their businesses through the establishment of E-commerce platforms that will provide Agents with a wider reach to customers. She called upon IATA to collaborate with KATA in the advocacy on the open skies implementation within the African continent in order to leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area opportunities that will pivot the rapid growth of Africa’s aviation industry.
KATA Finance Director Dr. Joseph Kithitu said that several business interruptions brought about by Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 affected travel agents’ cashflows as they experienced massive cancellations and delayed airline refunds. He called on IATA to conduct a re-evaluation of the agents’ financial review on the basis of the temporary Local Finance Criteria (LFC) that is currently in operation for the Kenyan market.
“KATA travel agents contribute over 75% of the total passenger number bookings to Kenya Airways and other international airlines operating in Kenya. The closer the collaboration between IATA and KATA, the faster we shall rebuild the recovery of travel” he said.
Dr. Kithitu also impressed upon IATA to implement the Travel Agents Service Fee solution that will enable the travel agents to collect their service fees through IATA’s billing and settlement program efficiently. He noted that this will improve on the operational efficiencies of the Agent’s businesses.
Al-Awadhi, who was accompanied by Dr. Alex Stancu, Head of Region, South and East Africa and Dr. Getnet Taye, Regional Manager, Cargo and Ground Ops – AME thanked KATA for hosting the IATA delegation. He emphasized on the importance of close ties between KATA and IATA as an impetus to boost Kenya’s aviation and tourism industry.
Al-Awadhi said that the airline passenger traffic to, from and within Kenya fell by 52% in June 2021 vs June 2019. The picture was similar for the first half of 2021, with passenger volumes having declined by 54.2% as compared to the first half of 2019.
He called for a joint focus between airlines and travel agents to aid the recovery of the aviation industry. “If we work together, the next two years should see stronger recovery – even as the country ramps up vaccination and more countries reopen their borders,” he said.
Al-Awadhi expressed his profound passion to helping Africa’s Air transport and Aviation industry grow. He called on KATA to join IATA in strongly advocating for intra-Africa connectivity dubbed Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM). He said that SAATM is intended to unlock travel within the continent and if fully implemented in the post-pandemic it will provide an even more important economic boost.
“Full implementation of SAATM across the continent would generate significant economic benefits for Kenya by creating about 39,000 new jobs and adding USD201 million to the country’s GDP,” he reiterated.
Al-Awadhi also spoke about the need for Kenya to realise that it is sitting on a gold mine full of opportunities! He urged Kenya to focus on a target of achieving 6.2 billion in tourism receipts compared to the current performance of 3.2 billion. He said, “Africa’s aviation performance has been challenging, and IATA is hoping to bring the transport ministers together in a forum to commit to the growth of the industry through strategic actions and interventions aimed at liberalizing the aviation industry”.
Al-Awadhi congratulated Kenya on going live on the New Generation of IATA settlement system (NGISS)! He said “Today, Thursday 23rd Spetemebr, 2021 is a momentous day for Kenya with the Go live of the NewGen system! Kenya was amongst the last few countries in the IATA network to go live and this was limiting Kenya’s potential to grow and capitalize on the gains of the new technology solutions.”
