Travelport has made British Airways NDC content available via Travelport+ to travel agencies in the UK and Ireland, and it says it will roll it out globally, but doesn’t say when.
Simultaneously, the platform has also said it will make United Airlines’ NDC content available via Travelport+ in Africa, the US, Europe and Middle East later this month.
A press release said the content curation layer within Travelport+ was driven by powerful AI and machine-learning capabilities to provide accurate, relevant results for a fast, streamlined booking experience for travel retailers. It allows agents to easily search, compare, book and service airline content in one place, with access to a wide range of rich content, fares and special offerings.
The platform is delivering simplified access to BA’s NDC content to agents, so they can easily book and service NDC offers for customers.
British Airways Director of Retail and Customer Relationship Management, Ian Romanis, said: “Together with Travelport, we’re now providing agents with a view of all our products and dynamic fares. With everything all in one place, we are empowering agents to take control of a wide range of content available to them for a more efficient and seamless booking experience.”
Jason Clarke, Travelport Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Travelport+ was designed to revolutionise the way airlines distribute their products by connecting suppliers directly with travel agents around the world through one unified platform. Following this launch, we will continue to deliver access to even more extensive offerings from British Airways.
“Our NDC solution is designed to support travel retailers with complete end-to-end servicing that goes beyond the booking process, allowing agents to easily manage trip changes on the go while offering superior levels of service to their travellers."
About United’s NDC content, Travelport said a simplified trial programme had been ongoing for selected agencies for several months and had been successful.
United VP Sales and Effectiveness, Glenn Hollister, said the airline had implemented NDC differently from other airlines: “Every ticket is issued on United ticket stock. Most of the airlines implemented NDC where their ticket is issued on neutral ticket stock. Because it's our ticket stock, it's in our system. It is accessible for servicing both direct and in NDC channels, and we have built servicing functionality that is overall quite a bit more complete than EDIFACT." EDIFACT is the global standard for electronic data interchange that has been used in the airline industry since the 1980s and is currently in use on GDSs.
