<B>BA, Others Build Up UATP</B>
By Amon Cohen
British Airways has unveiled a new payment system for U.K. corporate clients. Called Basys, the airline is proclaiming a long list of benefits in the system, including flown data, extended credit and simplified billing.
Basys is BA's version of the Universal Air Travel Plan lodge account system, formerly known as Air Travel Card and described by BA general manager for global distribution Kieron Gavan as "the airline equivalent of Visa."
Market conditions are rapidly shifting business toward UATP, which was founded in 1936, after several years of treading water. "We have doubled our issuer basis in the past two years," said UATP marketing vice president Mike Patzer. Star Alliance member Ansett Australia followed hard on BA's heels last week by announcing it was bringing out an enhanced version for Australian travel agents, and Patzer said Continental, Delta, Qantas and United airlines all are expanding their programs.
BA is a good example of why the zeitgeist is now hovering over UATP. The airline has launched Basys (Business Account System) just ahead of its move to zero commission on April 1. With most agents moving to service fees of one type or another, a logistical problem has arisen in handling card payments for transactions, with one card swipe required to bill the client for the airfare and a second for the fee to the agent.
Finding a way of matching each ticket to its corresponding fee on billing statements has presented a headache for BA, agents and card companies, but BA claims it has solved the problem with Basys. "There is a fancy box of tricks behind it, but it will look very straightforward on the statement," said Gavan.
Some agents also have warned that they likely will reduce their credit terms to clients. Basys may again provide an answer to that problem, since it allows clients to settle up with BA up to 30 days after monthly billing.
Basys allows clients to pay for travel on more than 200 airlines and bolts on the Cognos management information system, which, said Gavan, "allows you to slice and dice data any way you like." From June, users also will be able to collect flown BA data, allowing them to track whether tickets have been used, speed up the refund process and monitor travel spend on a daily basis.
The added flexibility is derived from UATP's automated sales reporting network, called ATCAN, which it launched last June. ATCAN supports the International Air Transport Association's goal to standardize and automate Bank Settlement Plan operations worldwide.
"It means clients effectively will be able to close up the till each night," Gavan said. And flown data will put an end to arguments over how much the client has really spent with the airline. Gavan anticipates that information will become the basis of commercial negotiations between BA and corporates.
The advent of Basys means competition for such established payment products as Diners Club--with which BA jointly issued a card for most of the 1990s--and American Express. American Express has its own lodge product, Enhanced Business Travel Account, which it claims is held by 70 percent of U.K. corporate travel agents. EBTA also has just been upgraded to deal with transaction fees and the double swipe issue.
BA had a short-lived relationship with UATP 12 years ago, but Gavan said this time would be different. "A number of carriers are getting into UATP for the first time and some flirted with it a decade ago and are now going back into it," he said. "The tools around it have more sophistication now and the direct Web-based connections to clients can flow benefits and savings to them."
There are no plans at present to extend Basys to clients outside the United Kingdom.