The National Association of Nigeria Travel Agent has called for fair play in driving cross border trade in air tickets to avoid losses by its members.

The President of the association, Olayinka Folami, made the call in a statement on Friday in Lagos.

Mr Folami said that, in the past two months, the association had engaged airlines, Global Distribution Services, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and FCCPC on the need for the fair play to strengthen the association and protect the market.

According to Mr Folami, NANTA members must apply caution on CBT due to reports about huge losses incurred by travel customers through purchases by NANTA members.

He said, “These losses that go as high as N25 million 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 associated with them.

Mr Folami said that one loss could wipe out previous profits and make one indebted.

 He said that the association was not against the entry of global players into the Nigerian market but desired fairness to avoid undermining the market.

 “The Executive Council of NANTA frowns at the merchandise of global fares that are not available in our market. This results in declining local sales and deficit to local players. We have promised government that we would fish out some of these global merchants and report them. The Nigerian market has lost about 40 per cent share, and this is not good for our BSP reporting. We advise them to stop eroding the Nigeria market,” he said.

Mr Folami listed the effects of CBT to include capital flight, local asset devaluation, threat to local industry players, and job loss.

He assured members of the association that NANTA was working hard to stabilise the market.

He said, “Airlines, GDS companies and governments have received our message on fair play, positively. We are already seeing signs of relative stability, and we are confident that we will get there. Pending that time, we advise strongly that NANTA members should desist from buying cross-border tickets. We have received troubling official reports about members who have been dragged to the police. Let us keep our belief that we are strong enough in NANTA to address the issues that challenge our businesses.”

(NAN)