Episode 1: Demystifying NDC with Lilly
Lilly Mannerswood, Serko’s Senior Product Manager and resident NDC expert, recently sat down with Jess Ogley, Serko’s Senior Technology Solutions Consultant, for the new Zeno Travel Tech Talks podcast.
Lilly clarified many aspects of NDC, busting some of the myths and reiterating its benefits so you can be better informed. Here are her answers to four of the questions we’re often asked about this technology and its impact.
1. Can you explain what NDC is exactly and where it’s come from?
NDC is an acronym for ‘New Distribution Capability’, a travel industry standard that has been around since 2015. It’s a way for airlines to retail their fares directly to travelers, without going through the Global Distribution System (GDS).
Traditionally, the GDS has been responsible for curating offers for travelers across multiple systems, giving the airlines very little control over what the consumer saw. Lower cost carriers like Ryanair and easyJet wanted to do things differently and offer real-time pricing and greater personalization. They were among the first to move to a direct distribution model where they could quickly change prices and offer ancillaries like seating and baggage.
NDC was born because more airlines wanted the same pricing and personalization flexibility. While many people might think NDC is not about the traveler but simply a better way for the airlines to control costs, I don’t believe that’s true. I think airlines want to distribute in real time, be reactive and personalize their offering to create lifetime loyal customers.
2. What do you mean by ‘real-time pricing and personalization’ and what’s their benefit?
In the traditional booking flow through the GDS – where most corporate travel is booked – airlines are constrained to very strict price points. With NDC, airlines have the ability to continuously price their fares and react to changes from other carriers really quickly.
That means as a traveler, you can search for a fare from an airline and they can assess in real time what price they want to offer you. It’s a fundamental shift that hopefully allows for better prices for travelers.
Personalization is all about using the information the airline has to give travelers better experiences. Prior to NDC, this information wasn’t available for booking business travel. For instance, if the airline knows a traveler has platinum frequent flier status, they can offer a discount when a flight is booked to thank the traveler for flying with them often. And these personalized rewards aren’t just for individual travelers. Airlines can also offer special prices to corporate travel management companies or travel agencies.
3. How is NDC changing the boundaries of airline offers and the application of corporate travel policy?
Corporates will need to be able to control more policy parameters in their online booking tools because, with NDC, policy has to cover much more than the cost of a seat. For example, do you want your travelers to get loyalty offers based on their frequent flier number? Access WiFi onboard? Get travel insurance? You need to be able to turn these things on and off. Zeno lets you customize your travel policy for offers now and we’ll be adding more flexibility as NDC evolves.
4. Where is Zeno’s capability when it comes to NDC, and what’s on the roadmap?
We started our NDC journey in 2017 and brought Qantas, Air Canada and Southwest into the Zeno platform through direct integrations with those airlines.
Since 2020, travelers have been able to shop any NDC airfares in Zeno, including airline promotions, corporate negotiated fares and travel agency discounted fares. NDC reservations can be modified and canceled within Zeno too.
Through feedback from our TMC and travel agent community, we found out that being able to offer and modify both GDS and NDC fares would help with the productivity they wanted. That’s why Zeno lets customers book both NDC and GDS fares within a single booking. So they can fly with Virgin one way, take Qantas back and book their hotel in the same itinerary. It’s very useful flexibility that gives everyone more options and cost control.
In terms of our roadmap, we’re currently building an integration with Sabre NDC and plan to release it in early 2024. As soon as it’s launched, customers will be able to shop and book airlines including Qantas, American Airlines and United for short haul trips. And then we’ll be bringing on the management modules that will let you change and cancel flights within Zeno.
I believe we have a very robust NDC offering now and it’s only going to get better for our customers. We’re looking forward to opening the NDC door to more TMCs and corporates, and we’re here to help however we can.
