Northstar

22 | www.travelweekly-asia.com TRAVEL AGENT For airlines, NDC offers the means to distribute their entire product portfolio, including ancillaries, in a consistent manner, across all channels, direct and indirect, using rich format such as photos and videos, with the ability to bring new product offerings to market much more quickly. For travel agents, it means having access to the entirety of an airline's product offering, and to work with real-time fare and product information, compared to the mostly commoditised displays of fares and schedules available in the travel agent channel. IATA believes that NDC enables access to all of an airline's offerings in the travel agent channel, which is not the case today. Since 2015, when the first NDC standard was published, NDC has moved from the pilot phase to the implementation phase. Some 113 airlines around the globe have confirmed plans to adopt the standard, and 56 are already using NDC. The NDC Standard is available to any third party, intermediary, IT provider or non-IATA member. A majority of airlines offers ancillaries a la carte or bundled with a flight. As of year-end 2017, some 42% of the airlines using NDC were offering rich content in the form of images and videos that enable customers to see what they are buying and airlines to differentiate their products. In order to bring visibility and transparency to airlines, travel agents, aggregators and IT suppliers that have implemented NDC, IATA launched an NDC Certification programme in 2016. The certification process validates the messages being sent and received. Who's certified? At the end of 2017, Travelport became the first operator of a global distribution system to be granted the highest certification (Level 3) as an aggregator by IATA for its NDC airline distribution technology. Both Amadeus and Sabre have announced they will be Level 3 aggregators by the end of 2018. IATA says its New Distribution Capability (NDC) is designed to enhance the capability of communications between airlines and travel agents and enable the travel industry to transform the way air products are retailed. By Ian Jarrett NDC takes off in Asia Pacific and what this means for agents The NDC will enable access to all of an airline's offerings in the travel agent channel, which is not the case today. PHOTO CREDIT: GETTYIMAGES Some examples of GDSs using the NDC standard include Amadeus working with Finnair to deploy their NDC API, Sabre working with American Airlines to sell seat upgrades and TravelSky making a number of deployments in China. Any airline that deploys an NDC application programming interface (API) to make its content available, or any travel agent or aggregator that uses these APIs to get that content, may apply for NDC certification. Any vendor that offers products and services that assist with NDC messaging within Services or Order and Order Management can apply to be NDC-capable. NDC certification and NDC- capable statuses have three levels of attainment: LEVEL 1 covers implementation using past and current NDC schemas with a limited scope – for example, sales of ancillaries post- booking. LEVEL 2 focuses on Offer Management. This level requires a more extensive use of the shopping/ offer management API. LEVEL 3 targets NDC end-to- end deployments. These are deployments which cover both offer and order management and where the airline takes full control of shopping as well as booking, payment and ticketing. Airlines in the Asia-Pacific region are also moving forward on the NDC journey. For example, Qantas recently launched the Qantas Distribution Platform that utilises the NDC standard and is certified to Level 3. Singapore Airlines has announced its first NDC connection with travel search and booking site, Skyscanner. Additionally, Singapore, Cathay Pacific and China Southern are among the airlines participating in the NDC Leaderboard composed of airlines that seek to grow their NDC volumes rapidly. 1 NDC is a technical standard, not a system or IT solution. 2 NDC is a business enabler for travel agents, because it makes it possible for airlines to close the gap between what is available on their own website and what travel agents have access to through their systems. 3 IATA has created two guides to assist both travel managers and TMCs to get the NDC standard implemented. 4 NDC is business-model agnostic. It can 'plug-in' to any distribution strategy, whether it involves the use of a content aggregator (the role played by GDSs) or not. 5 One of the expected benefits from NDC will be a reduction in Agent Debit Memos (ADMs), since in an NDC environment, the airline makes the offer and provides it to the agent through an aggregator such as a GDS, or directly. 6 NDC can help improve agent productivity by eliminating or reducing the need to move back and forth between their standard screen displays and airline websites in order to book ancillary options. 7 NDC can help TMCs deliver the best of two worlds to corporate travellers and travel managers: cost containment, reduced risk and enhanced traveller experience. 7 MUST-KNOWS FOR TRAVEL AGENTS:

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