IATA rates airspace agency’s billing system high

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has lauded the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) for its consistency in rendering qualitative bills in the last three years.

This feat, according to IATA, has ensured that the error rate in bills posted by the agency for its services to airlines has reduced to less than two per cent from over 30 per cent nine years ago.

Making this commendation during the IATA/NAMA Service Review Meeting, which held at the IATA corporate office in Geneva Switzerland, the Director of Airline Settlement Services Manfred Blondeel, said NAMA has carved a niche for itself as the best out of 75 authorities and over 4000 airlines they deal with globally, in terms of reduced error rate and disputes in bills posted by the agency to IATA.

Blondeel added: “Considering the myriad of disputes that we notice daily from errors by some authorities, some errors even exceeding 50 per cent, it is to our delight that the dispute/error rate of NAMA billing has consistently remained the lowest in the world with over 98 per cent accuracy.”

In his remarks, the Managing Director of NAMA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, noted that the progress so far made in the accuracy of airline billing is fallout of reforms being embarked upon by the agency towards ensuring transparency, accountability and efficiency in service delivery, part of which involves automating its business transactions.

“For instance, we have automated rendition of billings at the international airports in the country where traffic is huge, while we are also looking at doing same at other airports across the country,” Akinkuotu said.

While appreciating members of the commercial department of the agency for their dedication to duty, the NAMA boss pledged to support the department in its quest to achieve service excellence.

Also in her remarks, the General Manager of the department, Joy Umeh, recalled that IATA had visited NAMA a couple of years and had expressed dissatisfaction over its quality of bills.

Umeh said this visit by IATA’s team acted as a catalyst for the department to devise more aggressive ways towards perfecting the agency’s billing system.