NDC - Time to wake up and act
ALL TMCs must face the reality of fragmented content and execute plans to obtain that content. If your GDS provider is not able to fully execute NDC today, waiting until they solve the problem, costs your corporate clients a defacto price increase which is significant (not just the lowest fares as Jeff Klee has proven time and time again). And BTW, despite all this internal posturing about NDC servicing and complaints about the airlines' behavior, NDC is NOT a NEW Distribution Capability as it is over 10 years old! My experience is that the first company that senior management points to is the TMC, so you get the blame anyway. I am privy to multiple conversations with C-Level executives whose first reaction is that the TMC is ripping us off, and there is SOME TRUTH to that statement. I will continue to recommend to my corporate clients that they put penalty clauses in place for lack of NDC readiness and seriously consider rebidding if the TMC and their GDS relationship (which has a big commercial component- e.g. GDS kickbacks) remain the obstacle to NDC progress. Having an API connection is only one part of the story, for the GDS to capture the content they have to rearchitect their underlying infrastructure to support both EDIFACT and NDC in a single record. The way you can tell if the GDS produces a passive PNR segment for NDC bookings If so, this is a bolt-on solution that handles NDC shopping but is not a truly integrated solution for servicing I know switching TMCs is not an easy task, thus a need for SSI or at least an independent profile that is owned by the corporation and portable across GDS, OBTSs, and direct supplier sources as well. It is time for the corporate travel community to stop complaining and start acting!
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