Tag Archives: NDC

Global Panorama Showcase has tied up with Airlines Technology by TWAI, to offer NDC (New Distribution Capability) by IATA to agents in India at an affordable price. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, says, “NDC technology is the new solution and is the new normal, and it will be very useful to more than 4,000 IATA agents.” To this, Trideep Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Director, Airlines Technology by TWAI, adds, “Last couple of years, airlines have been pushing for NDC which allows them to distribute new things which they were not being able to do earlier. At the end of last year, we were in discussion with Varun Bansal, the CEO of Airlines Technology, as we were looking for enhancing our product offerings by having NDC on our platform. At the beginning of this year, we acquired Airlines Technology, and since then we have been merging everything with our platform. We are one of the largest NDC aggregators in the world. As of now, there are about 19 airlines on our platform, and we will have around 23 by the end of this year.”

Speedwings has recently signed an exclusive MoU with Verteil Technologies to access NDC-listed airline products through its direct connect platform ‘VDC’ (Verteil Direct Connect) and provide NDC-based training programme to travel agents and other aspirants in the industry. NDC (New Distribution Capability) is a travel industry-supported programme launched by IATA for the development and market adoption of a new, XML-based data transmission standard. The NDC Standard enhances the capability of communications between airlines and travel agents. According to Biji Eapen, Chairman and CEO, Speedwings, “This is a newly developed cutting-edge concept in our teaching-learning process to help the travel industry to become more professional and helps freshers to be employable. Speedwings and Vertiel will jointly issue certificates to the successful candidates.” NDC Training programme is innovative and unique in the history of IATA and travel industry. This NDC-aligned innovative tool allows to display and connect airline inventories directly to its host reservation system providing access to availability, pricing, shopping and ticketing plus facilitating ancillary sales of excess baggage, visas, chauffeur service, etc. NDC ticketing in India started issuing tickets on BA, EK and LH during the first quarter of 2018 only. It is currently facilitated through I-Top (Indian Travel-Agents Own Portal developed by IATA Agents Association of India), integrated through Verteil Direct Connect.

BirdRes Technologies, part of Bird Group and a leading provider of automated aviation and travel related software solutions, has received Level 3 status of New Distribution Capability (NDC) certification. The New Distribution Capability (NDC) certification will allow BirdRes Technologies to offer smoother communication, rich and customised content and further transparency in transactions across its product portfolio. Dr. Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director, Bird Group said, “Bird Group has constantly endeavoured to offer the latest and most innovative products. We are delighted to receive the Level 3 Offer and Order Management certification of New Distribution Capability (NDC) that will allow us to offer products that generate greater business value for our customers.” The “NDC Capable” Level 3 status certification was conferred upon to BirdRes Technologies by International Air Transport Association (IATA) on December 14, 2017. The certification recognises entire product portfolio including Birdres.com, Birdres SBT, Front Office Solution, and Consumer Internet Booking Engine support deployments using Level 3 Offer and Order management.

ATPCO and SITA are joining forces to provide the airline industry with NDC Exchange, an industry-owned platform to support the adoption of IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) for air fares and ancillary sales. NDC Exchange will enable quick adoption of NDC, lower the cost of compliance to the schema, while supporting complex interlining as airlines migrate to the new distribution format. “Participating in NDC Exchange as the launch pilot carrier provides an enormous amount of potential benefit to Air Canada” said Keith Wallis, Director of Global Product Distribution for Air Canada. “Beyond the obvious technical benefits of speed to market with an NDC-compliant API and the ability to support multiple standards and schemas, Air Canada is keenly interested in the community effect, whereby the benefit of a distribution network of like-minded partners grows exponentially with each new participant in NDC Exchange.” NDC Exchange will facilitate the real-time exchange of pricing, shopping and ancillary messages between airlines, travel agents and aggregators. It will normalize messages that use various versions of the NDC schemas. In addition, it will translate messages that are based on non-NDC schemas such as the Open Travel Alliance (OTA) XML schema. In doing this, ATPCO and SITA will support accelerated industry implementation of APIs and NDC while creating interoperability between the existing distribution model and NDC. This will reduce the overall cost to connect to, and support, multiple schema versions. Rolf Purzer, President & CEO, ATPCO, said: “ATPCO recognized the growing demand for simple, cost-effective API connectivity some time ago. In our partnership with SITA, we have developed this solution to enhance the complex distribution landscape, giving everyone a clear path to incorporate all methods of distribution.” Ilya …

Travelport announced that it has become the first GDS to be granted with both ‘Aggregator Level One’ certification and ‘IT Provider Level Two’ status by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as part of its New Distribution Capability (NDC) programme. For airlines, this means that Travelport is able to fully integrate with its NDC application programme interface should the airline choose to use NDC-XML messaging to distribute and deliver their fares and products. For travel agencies and travel management companies, this means that when shopping for and booking flights via Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, they will have even more enhanced travel content and greater access to ancillary offers. In particular, Travelport-connected agents will be able to make ancillary sales post the original flight booking, and through their preferred agency workflows, for the first time. Travelport has also achieved the NDC-capable ‘IT Provider’ Level Two status, making it only the second organisation—and first GDS–ever to be designated as NDC certified and NDC Capable.  This further expands its NDC capabilities and means that Travelport also has the option to distribute IATA NDC offers for fares and prices on behalf of the airlines electing to use IATA’s industry standards.

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) Western Region invited Yossi Fatael, Vice President, UFTAA, and Chairman, Air Matters, to conduct an in-depth presentation on New Distribution Capability (NDC) and IATA’s NewGen ISS in Mumbai. Also present was Sunil Kumar, President, UFTAA and National President, TAAI, and a few members of the Managing Committee. The presentation titled ‘Changing Trends in the Travel Industry and its Impact’ highlighted the travel agents’ perspective on these two important subjects. TAAI will conduct a similar workshop in New Delhi on January 30 at The Claridges from 4 pm onwards.