Over the past 2 ½ months, we have been meeting with all Airlines, GDS Companies, NCAA, FCCPC, and now scheduled to meet the Honorable Minister of Aviation. Our message to all has been single minded; Fair Play, Protection of our Market, and Strengthening NANTA. We would do a comprehensive report via a general Town Hall Meeting (virtual) on the 100th day of the present executive administration. However, pending that, it is urgent to serve this notice on cross-border trading, because of the alarming frequency of reports about huge losses incurred by travel customers through the purchases by some of our members. These losses that go as high as 25million from some of the cases that have been reported to us are mostly due to the generally non-refundable status of Cross-Border tickets and the poor service that is associated with them:
1) Tickets are highly restricted
2) Changes take longer because of delayed communication due to time Zone differences
3) Incidences of No-Show are high since communication is delayed and sometimes absent
4) A 15 million Naira ticket is lost, just like that!
5) No matter how lucrative your initial purchases of Cross-Border tickets have been, one problem would wipe out all your previous profits, make you heavily indebted to the customer, and send you to the Police/Law Enforcement as recent reports have shown.
Role of IATA
Contrary to what many think, IATA does not fix ROE, we have studied closely and can confirm that all the figures that IATA publish are from the FMDQ dashboard of the I&E FX Window, with a *2-day lag.* However, this practice by IATA; applying ROE daily, which many times end up being significantly higher than parallel market rates, leaves room for speculation, encourages buying USD from the parallel market, and purchasing Cross-Border Tickets. All of these put further pressure on the Naira, with harmful consequences on our market. This issue of ROE application by IATA is on the agenda of our discussions with Government. We need to clarify if IATA is authorized to apply ROE daily, with a 2-day lag. Pending that, it is instructive for IATA to note that the market is hurting.
Role of Global Merchants
While we are NOT against the entry of Global Players into the Nigeria market, Global players have the responsibility to play fair and NOT to undermine the market. The Executive Council of NANTA frowns against the merchandise of global fares that are not available in our market. This results in declining local sales and deficit to all local players. We have promised Government that we would fish out some of these global merchants and report them. The Nigeria Market has lost about 40% share and this is not good for our BSP reporting. We advise them to stop eroding the Nigeria Market.
The Implication/Effects of Cross-Border Trading
1) Capital Flight (further weakening the Economy)
2) Consumer Effect: poor service and heavy financial loss to customers
3) Local Asset Devaluation and threat to all Local Industry Players (Airlines, GDS Companies, Travel Agencies (Big & Small) will all lose). Airlines and GDS companies have confirmed heavy losses during our stakeholder visits
4) Eventual heavy loss of Jobs
Assurance of Council and Advice to Members
We assure you that we are working hard, behind the scenes, to stabilize this market; Airlines, GDS Companies, and Government have received our message on FAIR PLAY very well. We are already seeing signs of relative stability, and we are confident that we would get there. Pending that, we advise strongly that NANTA members desist from buying Cross-Border tickets. We have received troubling official reports about members that have been embarrassingly dragged to the Police and Law-Enforcement, and this is troubling to leadership. Let us keep together, keep our focus, and keep our belief that we are strong enough in NANTA to address the issues that challenge our businesses. We will!
Everything in life is a process, we have gone through enough, so it not difficult to be ‘just a little’ more patient; it is in our interest (both Big & Small Players) to protect the boundaries of this market. And when we do, we promise you that we would run fair!
FAIRPLAY is in the interest of all, otherwise we set the stage for ‘monsters’ that would devalue our market and turn all of us (Big & Small) into Affiliates. NOT under our watch!
