Learn how Travelport and the Airlines Reporting Corporation are paving the way for a travel agency’s implementation of NDC by viewing the Upper Midwest ASTA Chapter’s Zoom meeting held on May 24th.
Travelport – Will Owen-Hughes, Sr. Director Market Insight, discusses the progress of NDC in the U.S. He also talks about how each airline’s interpretation of the IATA NDC standard varies amongst the carriers. These nuances play an important part in the changes and challenges of selling air using NDC with Travelport as the aggregator.
Airlines Reporting Corporation – Paige Blunt, Sr. Manager, Direct Connect and ONE Order, reviews how ARC is using Direct Connect to offer airlines the ability to fulfill ticketing on each airline’s own ticket stock, reporting it through the IAR module on the agency’s ARC sales report along with the agency ticket stock. As is the case with the GDS, airline NDC strategies on ARC’s Direct Connect channel vary by carrier, i.e., form of payment acceptance and IAR reporting modifications after ticket issuance. In other words, options available in IAR for tickets issued on agency ticket stock could be different than tickets issued on the airline stock (issued via NDC).
For more information on ARC Direct Connect follow this link:
https://www2.arccorp.com/products-participation/distribution/arcdirectconnect/
In conclusion it appears that Travelport and ARC are successfully working through the strategies and nuances set by each carrier to help the travel agency community through the implementation of NDC. Because there is not a common NDC standard for the airline industry as a whole and realizing that might be a difficult adjustment for the agency community the advice offered by Travelport and ARC is to work with each of your airline partners through the NDC implementation process to become familiar with their individual strategies.
