Making The Leap

IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) initiative took a “critical” leap forward last October when all three global distribution system (GDS) providers – Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport – confirmed that they will achieve the highest level of certification as aggregators by the end of this year, reports Quebec editor, Mike Dunbar in his multi-part series on IATA in this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.

According to NDC program director Yanik Hoyles, getting the GDSs on board was crucial, since their commitment signaled that NDC has been embraced by all players.

And he told a December news conference in Geneva, “Their participation is critical insofar as they provide travel agency reach as well as mid- and back-office systems. Integration will now go smoother for their agents.”

Hoyles explained that NDC is a response to three distinct challenges that exist in today’s airline distribution eco-system:

• Airlines don’t have the ability to distribute their products across the travel agent channel without being commoditized, owing to the limitations of the current third-party distribution architecture.
• Travel agents can’t easily access many airline products that are available on airline websites.
• The customer experience is not consistent depending on where they search for travel and not rich when shopping through travel agents.

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.