The International Air Transport Association (IATA), Qatar Airways, and Qatar Post signed yesterday an agreement that will simplify billing and settlement between airlines and postal operator or the Postal Accounts Settlement System (PASS).
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), Qatar Airways, and Qatar Post signed yesterday an agreement that will simplify billing and settlement between airlines and postal operator or the Postal Accounts Settlement System (PASS).
The agreement was signed between IATA Director General, Willie Walsh, Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker, and Qatar Post Chief Financial Officer, Mohammed Jabr Al Naemi at the conclusion of IATA’s 78th Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit held at Sheraton Grand Doha.
The implementation of PASS will be “effective immediately,” the manual billing before will be replaced to a digital one, told Al Naemi to reporters. He stressed that the system will make the billing “faster, accurate and easier.”
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“PASS is a dedicated digital business-to-business solution designed to participating airlines, postal operators and other parties involved in the delivery of postal services around the world,” Al Naemi explained.
“This project has multiple benefits with regard to electronic data interchange, account reconciliation, billing and settlement process. This new and single platform will create efficiency and effectiveness and ensure data accuracy, consistency and quality,” the Chief Financial Officer of Qatar Post said.
According to IATA, PASS will produce standard invoices to postal operators as well as automate invoicing and payment processes, facilitate the reconciliation process and enable online dispute resolution. Moreover, it will provide a platform to enable the use of common standards and automate the large volumes of airlines’ postal billings and settlements that today are processed bilaterally and largely manually, leading to multiple discrepancies, inefficiencies and higher costs.
The benefits for Airlines and Postal Operators on PASS are: direct collaboration between airlines and postal companies, generating new business opportunities; enabling postal operators to accommodate electronic data interchange with multiple airlines, standardising procedures, outputs and online dispute functionality to speed up the overall process; single platform for production, distribution and reception of standardised electronic invoices in multiple formats and providing consolidated billing.
Also, minimisation of invoice data error and duplication, optional account reconciliation function to the postal companies, production of postal industry statistics, and increasing airline volumes processed, resulting in lower costs for the industry.
