WTAAA Opposes IATA Move to Standardize & Shorten Travel Agent Remittance Period

The World Travel Agents Associations Alliance (WTAAA) has expressed strong opposition to a decision by IATA’s airline members to impose a globally standardized, shorter remittance period on travel agents. 

The alliance, of which Canada’s ACTA is a member, says the one-size-fits-all move undermines local governance and jeopardizes collaborative relationships between local airline and travel agent representatives.

WTAAA maintains the IATA’s governance of the Passenger Agency Program is “structurally imbalanced,” because binding resolutions are adopted exclusively by airlines in the Passenger Agency Conference, with agents only having consultative status. The global agent organization says the removal of local flexibility on remittance periods is a clear example of this imbalance being used to override “balanced local solutions.”

WTAAA executive director Otto de Vries said: “By depriving national markets of their ability to tailor remittance schedules to local needs, the global alignment decision disregards long-standing local relationships between airlines and agents and ignores the operational realities of diverse business models, including high-volume corporate and tour operator accounts.”

In a recent mail-in vote of the Passenger Agency Conference, IATA airline delegates approved the enforcement of a globally aligned remittance period by mid-2026, eliminating flexibility for local markets to set alternative dates through their Agency Programme Joint Councils (APJCs). 

WTAAA says these councils — composed equally of local airlines and IATA-accredited agents — have historically worked together to set billing cycles and remittance timing in line with specific market conditions and the realities of local business relationships.

This new decision forces all BSP markets to adopt standard remittance periods at the end of each billing cycle, regardless of previously agreed solutions created by local APJCs that work for both airlines and agents. 

Under the BSP, IATA-accredited agents centrally remit funds to IATA, which then distributes them to the participating airlines according to their share of ticket sales. 

WTAAA is calling on IATA and its member airlines to restore the possibility for local APJCs to determine remittance periods in line with billing cycles and local financial criteria. 

WTAAA members argue it is unacceptable that a global forum composed solely of airlines can overrule local arrangements reached through joint negotiation.

The organization says shorter and “rigidly standardized” remittance periods results in agents having to pre-finance customer payments to a greater extent and to advance money to airlines prior to receiving full payment from corporate clients.