ROLE OF IATA & ICAO

INTERNATIONAL  AIR  TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION

is the world organization of the scheduled airlines. It was founded in 1945 with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and Montreal, Canada. Today, it has more than 250 scheduled, international and domestic airlines as its members belonging to more than 150 nations of the world.

The aims of IATA

To promote safe, regular and economical air transport for the benefit of the peoples of the world, to foster air commerce and to study the problems connected therewith;

To provide means for collaboration among the air transport enterprises engaged directly or indirectly in international air transport service;

To cooperate with the International Civil Aviation Organization and other international organizations.

INTERNATIONAL AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION provides the necessary mechanisms for airlines to find joint solutions to problems beyond the resources of any single carrier. Thus it has become the means by which they cooperate with each other in such a way to have knit their individual routes and traffic handling systems into a single world wide public service system. It ensures high standards of operation, safety, proper commercial practices and the most economical fares and rates for the public by establishing rules for the airlines on all the aspects of commercial airline operation. Such rules are established in the resolutions adopted in the IATA conferences held in its head quarters for any issues as and when required.

Membership of IATA is for any airline operating scheduled air transport services. There are two categories of memberships.

Active membership: for airlines operating international routes. This membership has two types of participation.

1) Trade Association: It is mandatory for all the active members and embraces all the non commercial activities which include the following.

Technical, Traffic services, Legal, Financial, Government affairs, Facilitation, Industry research, Passenger and Cargo agencies, Security, Medical, Training and education. Meteorology

2) Tariff Coordination: It is optional. However, this participation is equally important and all the major airlines participate in it. It deals with helping the governments in establishing the international air fares and rates for the airlines by unanimous assessments in the tariff coordinating conferences.

Associate membership: for airlines operating only domestic routes.

IATA approved Travel Agencies  

In order to provide best possible standardized customer service by the travel agencies IATA has a system of approval or accreditation of the travel agencies through the TATA Agency Investigation Panels (ATP) set up in most of the countries of the world. The application for such approval is processed through the local office of the All' forwarded to the IATA headquarters in Geneva or Montreal. This approval is given only upon thorough satisfactory investigation and monitoring the performance of the applicant. Therefore, IATA approval of a travel agency symbolizes reliability. Only IATA approved agencies enjoy the following five advantages.

> Earning commission or fee on sale of each international ticket > Keeping airlines ticket stocks > Credit facility from airlines > Rebated air transportation for agency owners, managers and staff > Use of IATA logo on the sign board stationeries and advertisements

Standardization of Airlines reservation system and traffic documents  

IATA has universally standardized the procedures and systems for all the airlines to facilitate the traveling public world wide. Most of the IATA member airlines are bound in an agreement to accept each others reservation requests and the traffic documents which is called Multi Interline Traffic Agreement (MITA). Thus, it has become so convenient for passengers to arrange their air travel no matter, how many destinations and the airlines may be involved in any itinerary in just a single transaction and with one ticket issued by only one airlines which will be honored by all other airlines in the itinerary. Therefore, the traffic documents which include Airline passenger ticket, Miscellaneous Charges Order (MCO), Multi Purpose Document (MPD), Excess baggage ticket and the Airway bill have been designed with similar format for all the airlines. Reservations among airlines are processed globally according to the AIRIMP (*ATA IATA Reservation Interline Message Procedure) using airlines exclusive computerized telecommunication system. *Air Transport Association of America

Chicago Convention  

This international intergovernmental convention was held at Chicago in 1944 in order to find solutions for the technical regulation of international civil aviation. The outcome of the convention were two historical decisions.

1) Foundation of a permanent intergovernmental international body, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with headquarter at Montreal, Canada.

2) The declaration that the air space above the territory of any country belongs to her

The members of ICAO are the governments of all the countries involved in the civil aviation. ICAO provides the mechanisms for the governments to make bilateral agreements for their airlines operation of services between the two countries and promote the international civil aviation for the benefits of the people of the world. Traffic rights which are termed as the FREEDOMS OF THE AIR are granted to the designated airlines of the two countries to transport passengers, mail and cargo between the specified cities of the two countries in the bilateral agreement. Such agreements are detailed with all the pertinent aspects of operation. Besides, all other countries whose air space or airports for non commercial purposes are required to be used also need to be in agreement. Considering the possibilities of any needs for the governments and airlines to operate international routes, ICAO has formulated nine (9) freedoms of the air. For operating each international flight an airline requires various freedoms of the air, 6 most significant of which are as follows.

1st freedom: It is the right of an airline of a country (A) to over fly the territory of another      country (B).

2nd freedom: It is the right of an airline of a country (A) to land in another country (B) for non commercial purposes e.g. refueling.

3rd freedom: It is the right of an airline of a country (A) to carry passengers, mail, and cargo from its home country (A) to another country (B).

4th freedom: It is the right of an airline of a country (A) to carry passengers, mail and cargo from a country other than its home country (B) to its home country (A).

5th freedom: It is the right of an airline of a country (A) to carry passengers, mail and cargo from a country other than its home country (B) to yet another country (C).

6th freedom: It is the right of an airline of a country (A) to carry passengers, mail and cargo from a country other than its home country (B) to yet another country (C) via its home country (A).

Warsaw Convention  

It was an intergovernmental convention held at Warsaw in 1929. It limits the liability of a carrier in case of accidents, death or injury to passengers, delay in arrival or loss of baggage and consignments. The important thing about this convention is that the carrier has to prove that it has taken all the measures for the safety and security of passenger, baggage and the consignment in case of any mishap. Thus the burden of prove is shifted to the carrier which normally rests on the claimant. Therefore, airline passenger tickets include the condition of contract as laid down in the Warsaw Convention 1929 and further amended later.

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