Mumbai: Kale Consultants Ltd., the leading provider of solutions to the airline, logistics and travel industry, today announced that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has chosen Kale as the prime technology supplier for the development of its industry-wide interline settlement platform Simplified Interline Settlement (SIS) initiative.
The Simplified Interline Settlement (SIS) project aims to standardise, facilitate and expedite interline billing and settlement in the airline industry. This initiative consolidates IATA’s vision to streamline the interline settlement process and encapsulates other significant initiatives such as First & Final™, Electronic Ticketing and Weekly Settlement.
Speaking on the occasion, Tom Murphy, IATA’s Senior Vice President for Industry Distribution and Financial Services noted that “Modernizing the interline settlement platform is an important step in our mission to simplify industry processes. The USD 500 million annual savings that SIS will generate is critical for the industry. As our technology partner and outsourced solution provider, we will be counting on Kale to deliver high quality solutions on time and on budget. At its steady state 3 years from today, SIS will handle over 1 million invoices per year, be used by over 300 airlines, support over 3,000 users around the globe and facilitate settlement of approximately USD 50 bn per year for the industry.”
Vipul Jain, CEO & Managing Director, Kale Consultants Ltd., said “Kale is delighted to be part of this major industry initiative driven by IATA. The SIS project adds to our existing partnership with IATA on the First & Final™ billing initiative and reinforces Kale’s position as a premier solutions provider to the airline industry. The initiative is also in line with our constant endeavour to provide the industry with innovative solutions, in face of the current economic conditions.”
IATA estimates that over 200 tons of invoices and supporting documents are being shipped between airlines around the world each year to support the airlines' interline billing and settlement process. Moving to 100% ET has not solved the problem as the Rejections process still requires paper-based supporting documents, and much that is not ticket-related is also processed, such as handling and catering. The spiraling costs, and therefore the potential for environmental and monetary savings and process improvements, are huge.
The SIS initiative envisages significant benefits/cost savings for airlines; from reduction in paper, postage, and courier fees to reduction in manpower cost associated with invoice registration, document preparation, document sorting and transaction level reconciliation. This initiative will also drive faster revenue recognition and better financial information for airlines. It is estimated that over 300 airlines will be using this system after it goes live in 2010.
About SIS (Simplified Interline Settlement):
An important component of the Simplified Interline Settlement (SIS) is the removal of paper from the billing and settlement process. A carrier will submit electronic billing data that will be converted into an invoice and a settlement file, sent to the billed airline, and cleared through the relevant clearinghouse.
The SIS solution will encompass Passenger, Cargo, and Miscellaneous interline billings and entries to the IATA Clearing House (ICH) for settlements. The SIS project envisions:
- a completely paperless invoicing environment for prime billings and rejects for all carriers,
- process enhancements for FIRST & FINAL™ carriers to enable billing and settlement automatically at the time of ticket lift, and
- integration of the IDEC (Interline Data Exchange Centre) passenger and cargo billing with ICH settlement on a weekly basis and expansion of the IDEC format with additional optional record types in order to support more billing items, such as rejects.
