Wave goodbye to YY, and enjoy the new age of the Flex Fare.
After decades of service, the international standard YY fare will become a ghost of travel past on 31 October 2017, according to IATA.
These multilateral inter-lineable fares were established in 1945 in keeping with the Chicago Convention’s standard framework for international civil aviation.
They allowed consumers to buy a ticket in a single currency and travel worldwide on different airlines with luggage checked to the final destination.
The YY fares were the most common fares sold up to the 1980s when deregulation, increased competition, more liberal bilateral agreements, changes to anti-trust regulations, and the rise of airline alliances began to reshape airline transactions.
Today, IATA reports, only 0.03% of tickets sold are YY fares.
But it’s technology that finally put the nail in the coffin of this formerly useful fare class. The increased adoption of New Distribution Capability and ONE Order have made YY fares increasingly irrelevant.
IATA has made intensive efforts to promote adoption of both NDC and ONE Order, through collaboration with technology firms and independent developers.
Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s director general and CEO says:
"YY fares were the backbone of global airfares for much of the last 70 years. But their relevance has been overtaken by changing markets and consumer demands."Airlines are responding to this with innovations that will benefit consumers with more choice. And IATA’s focus is on enabling airlines to bring these innovations to consumers using modern day marketing and distribution capabilities - NDC and ONE Order.Travelers are gradually experiencing the benefits of NDC with a richer and more transparent shopping experience when using travel agents. And behind the scenes, the ONE Order initiative is modernizing industry processes so that airlines sell their product in a single seamless transaction."
IATA will continue to support the multilateral interline system, setting global standards for fare construction, mileage principles and currency standards, with a focus on web-based technology - including the e-Tarriffs system—to make these processes more efficient.