MD, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA)
Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has been identified by The International Air Transport Association (IATA) as having one of the best, most reliable, and lowest billing error rate in the world.
The hint was dropped by the IATA Director of Airline Settlement Services, Manfred Blondeel while commending the airspace management agency for the improvement it has brought into its billing system in the last three years. Saying, the agency has reduced the error rate in its bills posted for its services to airlines from 30% to less than 2% in nine years.
Blondeel who gave the commendation during the IATA/NAMA Service Review Meeting held at the IATA corporate office in Geneva, Switzerland said, “NAMA has carved a niche for itself as the best out of 75 authorities and over 4000 airlines we deal with globally in terms of reduced error rate and disputes in bills posted by the agency to us.”
He added, “Considering the myriad of disputes that we notice daily from errors by some authorities, some errors even exceeding 50%, it is to our delight that the dispute/error rate of NAMA billing has consistently remained the lowest in the world with over 98% accuracy.”
In his remarks the Managing Director of NAMA Capt. Fola Akinkuotu noted that the progress so far made in the accuracy of airline billing is a fallout of reforms being embarked upon by the agency towards ensuring transparency, accountability and efficiency in service delivery, part of which involves automating its business transactions.
“For instance we have automated rendition of billings at the international airports in the country where traffic is huge, while we are also looking at doing same at other airports across the country,” Akinkuotu said.
While appreciating members of the commercial department of the agency for their dedication to duty, the NAMA boss pledged to support the department in its quest to achieve service excellence. Also in her remarks the general manager of the department Mrs. Joy Umeh recalled that IATA had visited NAMA a couple of years back and had expressed dissatisfaction over its quality of bills.
Umeh said the visit by IATA team acted as a catalyst for the department to devise more aggressive ways towards perfecting the agency’s billing system. While attributing this feat to the hard work and synergy of her team, general manager therefore solicited management cooperation in the area of enhanced working tools to cover the 27 billing points across the country.
