An ARC working group comprising airlines, travel technology providers and travel agencies is working to establish best industry practices for the servicing and support of NDC-enabled airline ticket transactions.
The group will attempt to address issues that are proving to be a particular burden to travel agencies using booking tools enabled by New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology. Servicing snafus are one reason why many agencies, especially in the corporate realm, continue to shy away from the modern airline merchandising technology.
In February, 17.9% of the air transactions settled by ARC were NDC-enabled. Of those, OTAs accounted for 91%, other leisure agencies comprised 8% and corporate travel agencies accounted for a paltry 1%.
ARC's NDC Advancement Working Group held its first in-person meeting last month in Austin, Texas. Participants included representatives from 11 corporate agencies, three OTAs, three air ticket consolidators, seven airlines and seven technology providers, according to Paige Blunt, ARC's senior director of direct connect and One Order.
Though Blunt didn't reveal any of the travel agency participants, she said the three primary GDSs and some U.S.-based airlines are part of the group.
In the past, ARC has facilitated working groups to develop best practices for managing debit memos and for irregular operations schedule changes.
"We can bring the competitors of all three stakeholder [groups] together to have open conversation," Blunt said.
She said the NDC working group has identified three post-transaction focus points: unused tickets, notifications to agencies of passenger name record (PNR) changes, and fare and void rules.
In situations in which a ticket or a portion of a ticket goes unused, a primary challenge experienced by agencies is that only some airlines allow a ticket that was purchased using traditional GDS technology to be exchanged via NDC.
The working group discussed what airlines will do to change that dynamic so that agencies can make exchanges for their clients without going to an airline's website, Blunt said.
The working group also held a breakout session to discuss notifications. Like other post-booking issues in airline ticket transactions, notifications of changes to NDC bookings are less consistent than they are for legacy GDS bookings, because with NDC the airline controls the offer and services the order rather than the GDSs.
Agencies within the working group, Blunt said, emphasized that it's crucial that airlines consistently send notifications when a client's itinerary is changed. Agencies also want to know the reason for the change and whether it was initiated by a client or by the airline.
"There was a lot of discussion about how often they wanted to have those notifications sent," Blunt said. "Most of the agencies would like it sent anytime there is any kind of change at all."
On the subject of fare and void rules, Blunt noted that there is currently significant differentiation, both among airlines and technology providers, on how fare rules are communicated and displayed within the NDC environment.
Agencies want more consistency, like they have for legacy GDS bookings. Agencies have similar consistency concerns with void rules, especially relating to how airlines apply the DOT's rule that airlines must provide refunds for cancellations made within 24 hours of booking.
The NDC working group will next convene in April. The group's goal is to have at least some best practices published by the end of the year, though a completed document might not emerge until 2025.