NDC is coming. Starting next month, American Airlines is expected to move 40 percent of its fares out of third-party legacy channels (the GDSs). AA isn’t alone; Qantas and United Airlines are also making big NDC moves that promise to overhaul airline distribution and retailing.
While some providers in the industry have been caught off guard by the NDC changeover, Zeno is ahead of the game.
Zeno supports NDC bookings, management and cancellations. Read on for more about how NDC impacts TMCs, how Zeno supports NDC and what’s ahead for Zeno customers.
How does NDC impact TMCs?
For many in the industry, the potential gains of NDC point to a better future of improved experiences across the air value chain. For others, it’s yet another challenge for an industry that’s taken quite a few knocks in recent years.
Benefits
- NDC will give TMCs a competitive edge. Traditional GDS workflows are cumbersome; TMCs are at the mercy of how each individual airline integrates its content within the GDSs. NDC will change the way agencies integrate with airlines, making it faster and easier to access in real time the same offers and content available through airline direct channels.
- NDC can streamline the booking process. It’s not easy to book air ancillaries with GDS content. You typically end up having to use multiple workflows to book an air ticket and add the ancillaries afterward. NDC will change that by supporting ancillary offers at the point of sale.
- Customers want it. NDC has been in the works since 2012 and corporate travel programs are more than ready for the flexibility, personalization and visibility it promises to deliver.
Challenges
- The resource demand. The mid-office and back-office accounting systems used by TMCs can be a complex patchwork that are primarily built around the PNR (passenger name record). Getting those systems configured to consume non-GDS reservations and then adapting operations to handle NDC bookings is no small investment for TMCs.
- The change in role. It’s a shift that was already underway with greater opportunities for travelers to self-service travel bookings, but the adoption of NDC could speed up the changing role of theTMC.
A major part of Serko’s NDC efforts is making it possible for more of our TMC partners to adopt NDC. That means hearing from you about your offline processes and challenges. With this information we can continue to make implementing NDC workflows more frictionless and efficient.
How Zeno supports NDC today
It’s already possible to shop, book and manage NDC fares within Zeno through our integration with TravelFusion.
What the traveler sees is the rich content they would typically see via an airline direct website, including information and images about everything included in the fare, as well as ancillary offers, like extra legroom or preferred seating.
In keeping with Zeno’s commitment to providing a connected trip, travelers are also able to shop and book both NDC and non-NDC (GDS/EDIFACT) fares within a single booking.
Last year, we added a TravelFusion change management module, which now makes it possible to shop flight exchanges and ticket them instantly, automating the entire process for both the customer and the TMC. Travelers also have the ability to cancel reservations within Zeno and instantly obtain a refund back to their original payment method (when permitted), removing the need to call their TMC to make changes to their booking.
A frictionless and efficient NDC future
In the months and years ahead, our investments in Zeno product development are going to continue to improve the customer shopping and post-booking experience as we grow our NDC integrations. And, like everything we do with Zeno, we’ll be doing it right alongside our partners and customers.
Let’s get started.
