Majority of airlines will not be SIS compliant this year: Kale Consultants

In a disappointing revelation only 19 per cent of global airlines expect their systems to be SIS compliant in time to meet the September deadline this year, according to a survey by Kale Consultants Ltd, who are the prime technology supplier for this platform. The low compliancy emerges inspite of the fact that a majority of the airlines have taken steps toward migrating toward IATA's Simplified Interline Settlement (SIS) initiative.

The industry-wide SIS platform is expected to generate annual savings of $500 million for airlines in large part by removing paper from the billing and settlement process.

According to IATA estimates, more than 200 tons of invoices and supporting documents are being shipped between airlines around the world each year to support the interline billing and the settlement process.

Kale's results emerge from a survey of 82 respondents representing 66 airlines. The survey was called the Simplified Interline Settlement: Airline Preparedness Survey, Wave 2.

According to Kale, though 82% of airlines have initiated steps toward SIS compliance over 50% of airlines "are still not clear about the required system changes to become compliant."

By region, European and MidEast airlines appear to be far ahead in terms of readiness, while "airlines in South America and Asia seem to be lagging."