Travelport has unveiled its product roadmap to extend its content offering to airline customers using the International Air Transport Association’s New Distribution Capability standard. This will enable travel agency customers to access such content via Travelport’s platform.
In December 2017 Travelport was the first, and is still the only, GDS operator to achieve IATA’s highest certification as an NDC Level 3 Aggregator. The company is now industrialising its NDC capability and incorporating NDC content within its suite of products for airlines and travel agencies.
These products will allow travel agencies to connect through Travelport’s platform in a single workflow combining traditional content and new NDC content. They will be enhanced and optimised continuously based on the evaluation of users and customers.
Travelport plans to include NDC content within an initial set of products as follows:
- An industrialised connection for airlines that connects via NDC-standard APIs
- A Point of Sale companion application for travel agencies that offers NDC-enabled content alongside the GDS workflow in the Travelport Smartpoint desktop. This integrated app will be launched from Travelport Smartpoint for ease of use alongside the existing processes and will be ready in the second half of 2018
- Shortly afterwards a first fully integrated search, book and manage function, combining NDC-connected content and GDS content in the same workflow, will be offered to travel agency customers on the latest Travelport solutions, including Travelport’s next generation API Trip Services
This integrated display and search response will be the foundation for all future releases, both through API and desktop. The NDC-enabled content will augment already extensive API content within Travelport’s airline Merchandising Suite. Travelport already connects to 24 airlines through APIs and expects to announce the first of many NDC-enabled airline partnerships soon. NDC integration is being developed in collaboration with a number of agents and airlines who are providing continuous feedback leading up to the launch. These partnerships will help Travelport to ensure that its NDC integration serves the needs of all of its stakeholders as this product suite evolves.
Stephen Shurrock, Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Building on our unique NDC Level 3 status, we are extending our range of products ready for the new mixed-economy era of airline distribution. Travelport has a rich history of innovation and, with our NDC-enabled products, we intend to maintain this as we seamlessly, speedily and accurately deliver the broadest range of bookable content to our customers.”
