About 10 air lines and 15 travel agents operating in Bangladesh are going to introduce the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP), an electronic billing and ticketing system, to ease the reporting of ticket sales and the value settlement procedure of travel agents and airlines. State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir inaugurated the system at a function in the city Tuesday. The function was also addressed, among others, by Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (ATAB) President Muhaimin Saleh, its Secretary Bari and International Air Transport Association (IATA) Manager Rana Chowdhury. The BSP will save minimum $ 8.0 per ticket and put misuse and abuse of tickets in check absolutely. The pilot project will help curb corruption, irregularity and malpractice, which are blamed for the limited number of flights on international routes, even though the number of passengers has increased by 30 per cent over the last five years. Having started in Japan in 1971, the BSP is in operation at over 70 locations serving more than 150 countries. A total of 340 million tickets are processed through IATA's BSPs worldwide with the total value settlements topping US $ 158 billion in 2004. IATA brings together 265 member airlines. Flights of the airlines account for 94 per cent of all the international scheduled air traffic. "BSP will infuse dynamism stopping corruption and malpractice which is also a part of Millennium Development Goals," said Alamgir. Traffic increased by 8 per cent in 2004 but BSP will provide ATAB and airlines a more sophisticated system of billing and ticketing, said Rana. Terming the introduction of BSP as a revolutionary measure, ATAB President Saleh said it will stop unethical practice currently prevailing in this industry.
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