NDC: IATA’s new vision of distribution

Finance, safety, security, taxes, regulation and more were on the agenda during IATA’s global media day in Geneva, Switzerland. Yet the focus of attention was on the airline industry association’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) plan. In his opening remarks at the event, IATA’s director general and CEO, Tony Tyler observed, “In October we reviewed our Simplifying the Business (StB) program. In the beginning StB was focused on improving service and cutting costs. With that we delivered e-ticketing, bar-coded boarding passes and self-service kiosks. Those enabled a wave of Self-Service options that we called Fast Travel covering key processes — check-in, document check, bag tagging, boarding, re-booking and baggage tracing. Already over 100 airport-airline combinations are working to make these available for travelers. And by the end of next year we hope to have these available to 20% of eligible passengers.” Tyler continued, “At the World Passenger Symposium in October we added a new dimension to our approach to StB. Along with cutting costs and improving the passenger experience, we also want to help grow opportunities to add value to the travel experience… Our new flagship program is the New Distribution Capability (NDC). A year ago it was a concept. In October the foundation standard was established in cooperation with industry stakeholders. And now we are working to put together the detailed technical standard — also in a process of broad consultation with our travel chain partners who have the technical expertise to contribute.” “What exactly is NDC,” Tyler asked, before continuing, “I cannot draw you a picture of it or even describe it accurately in words. We are developing standards with a vision to enable airlines to provide more information to their customers to help them make informed decisions on air travel. That will enable innovation and invite competition into the distribution space.á And that will make the shopping experience for travel products much more modern.” He said that, “If you go to an airline web site, you will find lots of fully described options for buying air travel. But if you buy through a travel agent, they are getting their information through a global distribution system (GDS), and the information is limited. ” “With NDC,” Tyler said, “we want to unleash innovation so that the shopping experience at a travel agent is as robust as what you would get on Amazon.com, for example. The way that we are going to do it is by creating a set of open standards for airlines to provide their product information and inventory. And we expect that developers — including today’s GDSs — will seize the business opportunity to develop much more modern distribution systems. And just as the smart phone standard setters would not have imagined that they could be used to turn on the coffee machine in the morning, the degree of innovation that will result is difficult to predict.” And he concluded, “But it is certain that the result will be a better and more efficient shopping experience for the customer. And I can say that with the certainty of knowing what competition does to markets. NDC will facilitate new entrants into the market as well as creating new opportunities for the GDSs. And that alone has got to be good for consumers who will also benefit from greater consistency in products and services offered across the different distribution channels.” Go to http://www.iata.org for more.