Finchglow boss proposes central data system to resolve ticket sales charge dispute

The Group Managing Director of Finchglow Holdings, Mr Bankole Bernard, has proposed the deployment of a centralised transaction data architecture and automated settlement platform to resolve Nigeria’s persistent controversy over the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC).

Bernard said the absence of a common transaction database has contributed to ambiguity surrounding airline ticket sales, collections, remittances and outstanding TSC obligations, making reconciliation between airlines and regulatory agencies more difficult.

Speaking at a media briefing held at Lagos Aviation Academy (LAA) in Lagos on Tuesday, Bernard argued that rather than relying on fragmented records maintained by different stakeholders, the industry should establish a common digital data environment through which authorised users can access and verify the same underlying transaction information.

“Why can’t we have a centralised data system?” Bernard queried.

According to him, airlines, regulators and other stakeholders could be assigned individual access credentials while operating from a single database. This, he said, would allow each stakeholder to monitor its transactions without depending exclusively on another party’s records.

“Everybody will see, I will have a login, I will see what I’m doing,” he said.

Bernard said the proposed architecture should provide a common basis for capturing, validating and reconciling TSC-related transactions.

Rather than relying primarily on aggregate declarations, the system could provide transaction-level visibility covering ticket issuance, ticket value, applicable TSC, collection, remittance and settlement.

He said the approach would make it easier to determine where discrepancies occurred and provide an auditable trail for subsequent verification.

“If you really want this problem of TSC to become a thing of the past, then we should have a centralised data system,” Bernard said.

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“Once we have a centralised data system, automation becomes the next thing now,” he added.

The proposed system, he said, should also support electronic payment and automated generation of receipts, thereby providing immediate evidence of settlement.

“You can sit in your office and pay what you are going to earn,” Bernard said. “Let us see it on the system.”

He said the technology required for such an architecture already exists, suggesting that the major challenge is implementation, governance and consistent enforcement.

He pointed to existing aviation financial settlement systems, including the International Air Transport Association (IATA) clearing-house model, as evidence that structured and automated processing of aviation-related financial obligations is technically achievable.

Bernard also cautioned against treating the TSC controversy exclusively as an airline compliance problem.

He acknowledged that regulators have the authority to scrutinise figures declared by airlines but argued that regulators must equally have effective technological systems for independently validating those declarations.

He questioned why some aviation processes still depend on manual records when digital alternatives can provide greater transaction visibility and traceability.

According to him, the objective should be to establish a compliance framework in which obligations can be measured and verified electronically rather than one that repeatedly produces competing claims between airlines and regulators.

He said weaknesses in data management, verification and enforcement should not automatically be attributed to carriers where stakeholders are operating from different datasets.

Bernard specifically criticised the situation where different aviation agencies and airlines may operate with different sets of figures.

He noted that where the NCAA produces one set of figures, FAAN another and NAMA a different set, while airlines dispute the figures, the absence of a common data source makes reconciliation more complicated.

A centralised architecture, he argued, would ensure that authorised stakeholders are interrogating the same underlying transaction records.