Combined NDC API for OTA’s, B2B providers, Meta’s and GDS from NDCMarketplace.

If you are an Online Travel Agency (OTA), a B2B provider, a Meta Search Engine or a Global Distribution Provider, the combined NDC API solution from NDCMarketplace.com, is your complete answer.

Today’s global customer travelers want a shopping experience that is customized and differentiated by the comfort level and ancillaries options they value. The combined API from NDCMarketplace.com removes the complexity from all the different messaging standards and versions used by many airlines, IT Providers, GDSs, PSSs and travel sellers and creates infinite opportunities to transfer and exchange customized offers.

Who are the Suppliers?
Suppliers in this post refer to any air content provider, be it Global Distribution Systems (GDSs), Airlines, IT providers who act as Technology Middle Ware provider for Airlines, Passenger Service Systems (PSSs), consolidators or even content aggregators.

Who are the Online Players?
Online Players in this post are any Online Travel Agents (OTA’s), Business to Business (B2B) providers, Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) and Meta Search Engines (Meta’s.)

For any online player to be successful, the most important content is Air. All along, this air content came primarily from Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) and/or Low Cost Carriers or consolidators like Travelfusion. This made it easy for any OTA or B2B provider to manage connectivity as there were fewer variations or changes from the GDSs or LCCs. All that they had to do was integrate three GDS systems, the LCCs and the Consolidators for air content. Unlike airline websites, where different brands are showcased within the same cabin using rich media, most of the online players display only the lowest fare.

With the introduction of IATA’s New Distribution Capability and Airlines aggressively pushing for NDC Content, the scenarios have changed. In addition to the GDS and LCC integration, online players are left to integrate individual NDC airlines as well. As airlines evolve as retailers and turn to showcase their products in its entirety with rich media, OTA’s or B2B providers will have to integrate third parties like Route Happy also to measure up.

The New Distribution Capability (NDC) was envisioned in the IATA Resolution 787 almost seven years ago. Since then, there has been a great deal of activity around refining the XML schema and redefining the business requirements for flight shopping, order creation, managing payments and accountable documents.

As of June 2021, 99 airlines are NDC Certified, out of which 51 of them hold ‘Level 4 with FULL Offer and Order Management certifications’, 17 airlines are ‘NDC@Scale certified’, 23 airlines are ‘Level 3 Certified with Offer and Order Management’, 4 airlines are with ‘Offer Management’ and 4 airlines with ‘Post Booking Ancillaries’ as per IATA’s NDC Registry. Each of these different levels use different IATA NDC Schemas. Additionally, 70 IT providers that offer products based on the NDC standard for Airlines and Sellers/Aggregators bring their own versions or schemas. Going forward, IATA plans to release two new versions of the NDC schema over the next two years.

The challenge is real for a small-scale Online Travel Agency or B2B provider to manage these various integration’s (GDS + LCC + NDC airlines + Route Happy etc), ensuring up-to-date versions and schemas from various technology providers and the cost, risk, time to market them.

This is where the combined API from NDCMarketplace.com comes in place.

The combined API from NDCMarketplace.com allows OTA’s and B2B providers to focus completely on the business of travel while saving huge costs associated with the development and maintenance (such as labor, IT vendor expenses etc). For Airlines and Air Content providers, NDCMarketplace.com will provide them with ready access to all the Travel Sellers connected to the service, regardless of the schema version. This allows for easy access to many distribution points as well as speed time-to-market, since carriers will no longer need to develop new schemas, or more importantly, wait for their technology partners’ release schedules.

NDCMarketplace.com consumes API or XMLs in any format from Global Distribution Systems, Low-Cost Carriers, New Distribution Capability Airlines and/or IT Providers and/or Passenger Service Systems; normalize and translate the same and expose it as a combined single NDC standard API for any OTA, GDS, METAs or B2B provider to further consume in the latest IATA NDC Schema on a neutral, cost-effective basis. The OTA or B2B Provider plugin their credentials with the various suppliers so that the commercials (GDS incentives, airline incentives etc) remain between the Travel Sellers or Online Providers and the Suppliers. All upgrades, enhancements, feature changes etc on the combined API is carried out by NDCMarketplace.com.

The combined API from NDCMarketplace.com also combines traditional and new distribution capabilities, thereby creating additional value options to facilitate quick adoption of NDC.

With various Airlines partnered with NDCMarketplace.com, the combined API has a simple way to connect and expand the airlines offers to multiple distribution points that are already connected to NDCMarketplace.com. Airlines will continue to maintain complete control over which sellers have access to its content and what payment modes the airlines have agreed with the sellers.

The combined NDC API supports shopping, booking, and servicing workflows and enables the cross-selling of ancillary services between airlines, and among airlines and sellers. By using a common data model, it normalizes messages regardless of version or format, creating inter-operability across the distribution ecosystem. Travel sellers can access multiple airlines via the combined API from NDCMarketplace.com, hence lowering the cost of their implementation.

NDCMarketplace.com and the combined API enables airlines and sellers to further augment their NDC distribution strategy with additional retailing and settlement capabilities made available through the platform. This includes integration to IATA Financial Gateway (IFG), which provides settlement support.

If you are an OTA or B2B Provider or Online Player looking to reduce your development time and costs, get personalized offers into the market faster, access enriched product personalization, display rich content, and design transparent shopping experiences, the combined API from NDCMarketplace.com is here to guide you.

For a real-time performance of the combined API, subscribe to NDCMarketplace.com, plugin your Supplier credentials and perform a search to see GDS content along with NDC and/or LCC content exposed in one screen, while you compare, book and conduct after sales, including ancillaries – today NDCMarketplace.com Agency Desktop consume the Combined NDC API on NDC schema 18.2.

Contact us on sales@ndcmarketplace.com for more details

Happy Selling !!!