NDC Airline, GDS and LCC All At One Platform

NDC will enable the travel industry to transform the way air products are retailed to corporations, leisure and business.

 

 

What is NDC?

 

NDC is a new technology developed by IATA to streamline the airline distribution process. It is an XML-based communication standard used to establish direct connections between airlines and third-party distributors. 

NDC enables the airline industry to provide information on ancillaries, seat selection, and other rich content such as images and videos. Eventually leading to dynamic pricing & personalized offers. 

TripFro helps Airlines, Travel Agents, and third-party vendors drive more revenue out of business. With our NDC-based solutions, we improve traveler’s buying experience, substantially improve airline's ancillary sales with reduced distribution cost. NDC enabled booking platforms for users, allowing them to display multi-platform data on a single page.

 

NDC Enabled Airline API and Internet Booking Engine (IBE) Enhancing Travel Business Between Airlines and Travel Agents

 

The NDC program enables the travel industry to transform how air products are retailed to corporations, leisure, and business travelers, by addressing the industry’s distribution network limitations:

• Product differentiation and time-to-market

• Access to full and rich air content

• Transparent shopping experience

NDC stands for the New Distribution Capability, which is essentially an XML standard created by the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) to enable airline service providers to deliver rich content and ancillaries to their clients. 

Travel Management Companies can leverage the advantages of NDC by integrating with content aggregators such as global distribution systems more easily. NDC could be implemented in two ways, directly integrating into the airline Passenger Service System (PSS) or via an integration layer outside of the PSS. 

NDC will give airlines greater flexibility to differentiate and sell their products via third-party intermediaries (like global distribution systems, aggregators, and travel management companies) or direct consumers. 

TripFro Airlines Booking Engine (B2B) Tool enables airlines to sell NDC offers and ancillaries dynamically. NDC enables an airline to expand its product offerings (including those of its partners) and increase its sales channels. 

With a full-fledged NDC implementation, travel agencies can easily sell ancillary products and services of flights more competitively with the airline's direct channels. It enables airlines to consolidate and present all travel inventory in a single place, bundle it the way they want, display rich content to customers, and become the single point of sale. 

Airlines, Travel management companies (TMCs), online travel agencies, corporate buyers, global distribution systems, and other technology players contribute to the NDC Standard. An industry-standard will help to improve the efficiency of the airline distribution system, which will benefit airlines, agents, GDSs, IT providers, and travel start-ups.

With NDC, airlines can also provide a wider range of approved offers through GDSs. We directly integrated NDC-enabled Airlines and suppliers including major consolidators. NDC enables Travel Agents to digitize their business by providing Custom Websites, Mobile Apps, Corporate Booking Tools, and many more tools and utilities. 

We provide comprehensive and seamless content integration via NDC connectivity. TripFro allows airlines to distribute their contents in real-time, and sets a standard for the APIs available to TMCs, travel agents, travel aggregators and corporates. 

New Distribution Capability (NDC) is the popular entrant in the era of technology that aims to bridge the gap between the airlines and travel agents, OTAs, TMCs & travel consultants. A majority of agents believe NDC can help them be more competitive and customer-focused and will make selling airline ancillary products more efficient.

 

TripFro is Powered by NDCs

 

TripFro enables you to build, manage and scale a world-class corporate travel management system. Give your travelers the best booking experience, with unrivalled inventory and hands-on, personalized support.

If you’re new to the travel industry, NDC can be a little complicated to get your head around:

• NDC provides additional content to third-party booking platforms like TripFro, by connecting travelers directly to an airline’s unique product offerings

• This connection including ancillaries, servicing, bundles, and more

• For travelers and their managers, NDC delivers a more efficient booking process, as well as richer content for a more personalized traveler booking experience

• A more personalized experience creates happy travelers and greater compliance with your travel program as a whole

With TripFro’s secure, flexible and cost-effective settlement platform, airlines and travel agencies can create customized, effectively managed partnerships that leverage New Distribution Capability (NDC).

 

Who’s Involved in NDC?

 

 

There are several different players involved in the NDC process: airlines, travel agents, aggregators, and IT providers. Travel agents and airlines are convenient. 

The aggregators are the different intermediaries involved in communicating the travel agent’s request to various airlines. This can be GDS (Travelport has recently been certified as an NDC distributor) or metasearch. IT providers are responsible for NDC integration into the airline's IT infrastructure.

• Corporate buyers and travelers

• Full-service and low-cost airlines

• Content aggregators and travel agents

 

Why Airlines develop New Distribution Channels (NDC)?

 

Gain more control over their distribution strategy to enable unique products and services and reduce the dependence on third-party distributors. 

Generate new revenue from expanded offerings, including ancillary products and services, to distinguish and market beyond a simple, text-based sort by price. 

Save through shifting and recovering distribution costs by applying surcharges in the GDS and leveraging commercial negotiations with service providers.
 
Increase traveler engagement by enabling insight into shopper preferences and delivering customized offers.

 

Benefits of NDC Airline

 

One of the primary advantages of NDC was its supposed ability to allow airlines to bypass the GDSs. Without the use of a GDS, NDC would allow airlines to directly share dynamic content with OTAs, travel search engines, and TMCs.

Product differentiation - The new standards allow for rich content, allowing airlines to differentiate their products beyond just displaying prices and schedules. They will now include all service details. 

Customer information access and personalization - With NDC's support, airlines can now obtain direct information about their customers, making it simple for them to add more personalization. 

Pricing- with NDC (the new XML standard), airlines can build their own APIs. Thus, giving more control of pricing, allowing them to modify individual prices or change prices. 

Airlines can also create their travel package offers and personalize them to their users. 

Less dependent on Legacy Passenger Systems (PSS) - Most airlines utilize PSS that contains reservation information, fares, and schedules. NDC improves efficiency by utilizing airlines' private interfaces and presenting data stored in PSS databases.

 

Benefits of NDC for Travel Agents

 

With the help of NDC integration and messaging standards, GDS and third-party companies are creating partnerships and offering engines that will allow airlines to distribute merchandising across multiple channels. 

Global Distribution Systems (GDS) enables travel agents to sell ancillary products enabled by airlines in the GDS. When airlines use NDC, travel agents will not encounter any difference in their travel business workflows. 

In fact, when NDC standards are enabled on both sides (airlines and GDS), they will benefit greatly because they will no longer have to go through multiple systems or websites to purchase ancillary products for their customers. NDC content allows agencies and airlines to personalise offers in real time. NDC connections enable airlines to recognize an individual or a corporation at the time.

 

Impact of NDC in the Airline Industry Across the Globe

 

 

NDC (New Distribution Capability) will enable the travel industry to transform the way air products are retailed to corporations, leisure, and business travelers, by addressing the industry’s current distribution limitations: product differentiation and time-to-market, access to full and rich air content, and finally, transparent shopping experience.

NDC is an excellent technology for customizing an end-to-end travel experience that caters to its customer's preferences. One of the biggest selling points of NDC is the facilitation of personalized fares. Giving airlines the ability to serve travelers with a fully customer-centric approach, dynamically pricing and personalizing their products.

Whether your airline chooses to connect to the agency distribution channel through a GDS, a direct connection, an aggregator, or a combination of these models, TripFro is here to support your unique distribution strategy.

 

Why the Need for NDC?

 

The airline industry has been developing NDC since 2012. Travelport recognized the need for airlines to display their wide range of airfares and ancillaries in an interactive, personalized, and engaging way for indirect sales, similar to the way it is presented on their websites. In addition, the desire of airlines to have more control over their content and improve their sales capabilities led the need for NDC in the travel industry.

 

NDC is the Future of Airline Distribution:

 

The changing nature of the travel users, Metasearch, and the larger Online Travel Agencies are evolving into online marketplaces where all the travel needs of a consumer are fulfilled. There are currently 62 airlines that are either NDC Certified or with XML functionality. Airlines with direct connections are very limited; most airlines have chosen to work with GDS partners as Amadeus or Travelport for NDC connections. 

TripFro supports airlines in establishing NDC connections, our services enable the airlines to sell seats, baggage, meals, car hire, travel insurance, and more.  

Airlines: NDC will benefit the airlines as it will be easier for them to sell their products and services to who they want, whenever they want, and through their preferred channel. 

This will help the airlines making better and relevant offers for end-users to choose from based on their needs. 

Small TMC’s: With NDC offering better transparency of fare to providers, travel agents will play an important role in targeting the right audience. 

Travelers: NDC implementation benefits travelers by saving their time and money, and facilitating contract negotiations. With NDC, travelers get a choice to select the best option available, along with the convenience while bookings, and control and visibility of the entire trip allowances.

NDC API- TripFro is a major player in the airline distribution system. We are NDC certified and provide cutting-edge solutions for airlines. The NDC standard’s goal is to provide airlines with direct information about their customers.

NDC has been promised that the travel industry is accelerating innovation. It is a significant change in the way travel is currently sold and purchased. In addition, NDC improves industry collaboration and gives travelers a choice and customer satisfaction. In the end, NDC solutions enable airlines to achieve their primary goal of selling their ancillary services.