mumbai travel agents got a breather from airlines this week as they deferred their decision to introduce the practice of weekly payment cycles to june 2013 simply put this means agents can continue to give their customers the conventional benefits of extending a credit period for ticket payments the international air transport association iata had previously announced that from june 1 agents will have to make ticket sale payments to the airlines concerned on a weekly basis instead of the currently followed fortnightly remittance cycle the move was opposed by agents in india and following several representations by travel agents bodies the deadline for the implementation of the weekly payment regime was postponed to november 1 recently the deadline was deferred to june 30 2013 travel agents association of india taai president iqbal mulla is hopeful of further deferment next year as well in india there is a practice of extending credit for goods purchased and travel agents are no different in the west even small payments are made with credit cards taai has consistently opposed the weekly payment cycle decision said mulla in india we do not follow an advancedcash economy the payment for the ticket purchased is always made after a few days so since 2009 the matter was being debated and discussed and taai consistently opposed its implementation in view of the industry environment in india he added other than india the credit practice is followed in countries like korea iran israel iraq bhutan maldives sudan etc he added what is of relevance to consumers is that the prevalent practice will continue that is those who book air tickets through agents dont need to make payments for their purchases immediately as the agents dont have to pay airlines on a weekly basis at least for the time being taai has about 2500 members on its rolls of which about 1500 are small or mediumsized travel agencies these businessess would have been hit if the weekly remittance schedule was implemented next month say agents