NB: This is a viewpoint by, Christoph Klenner, secretary general for the European Technology and Travel Services Association (ETTSA).

It was with great interest but also grave concern that I read a pro-NDC editorial from IATA earlier this week in Tnooz.

This editorial from Aleks Popovich (IATA's SVP for financial and distribution) amounted to what IATA believes the travel agency community is worried about when it comes to the proposed New Distribution Capability (NDC).

IATA needs to stop patronising those who are supposed to be their customers and industry partners. When reading Popovich’s comments and IATA’s overall communication around NDC over recent months, I cannot help but feel I'm living the Groundhog Day movie.

At the end of every day IATA promises to become inclusive and truly collaborative. But the next morning we are back where we started with airlines continuing to deliberate on important industry-wide changes behind closed doors.

It's not just about a data standard

Popovich keeps claiming that NDC is just about developing a common data standard.

Yet those who have read Resolution 787 and have had the privilege of attending NDC working group meetings or at least reviewing meeting minutes, know that NDC is about a lot more.

In fact, if it were merely a collaborative data standard, no one would be wasting their time writing op-eds; we would simply get to work and make it a reality.

The airline and wider travel industry have worked together to create data standards since the late 1940s.

Everyone knows and agrees that such standards -- when designed and implemented in a proper and collaborative manner -- can help improve the efficiency of processes, create open and competitive commercial environments, and thus bring costs down.

Representing both GDSs and major online travel agencies (including their TMC subsidiaries), let me highlight what I believe is the real issue at hand here: it is the fact that NDC goes above and beyond a data standard, and instead intends to create a fundamentally new business model by reversing the flow of data.

Let’s call a spade a spade

NDC appears to involve a group of airlines attempting to collectively impose a new business model on consumers and the travel agents who serve their needs. A model which is founded on the use of opaque fares and ancillaries to make real comparison shopping difficult, if not impossible.

These carriers hope to supplant the current model, developed in a competitive market, of transparent fares that any consumer can easily compare anonymously – a model that IATA and airlines have confirmed has constrained their ability to raise prices.

This is not only evidence of short-sightedness and poor business sense, it is also in blatant breach of the competition rules Popovich refers to.

GDS incentives not an issue

I must also add that the "elephant in the room" is not GDS incentives for travel agencies as Popovich suggests. That facile statement is, I must say, a pure diversion.

ETTSA and other travel trade associations have fully substantiated from IATA’s own documents the competition and privacy problems with NDC.

Popovich also ignores the fact that the Global Business Travel Association, the Consumer Travel Alliance and the American Antitrust Institute -- none of which could conceivably care at all about GDS incentives -- have urged the US Department of Transportation (DOT) to reject IATA’s application for approval of Resolution 787.

The real elephant in the room

ETTSA's key concern is "personalised pricing", which requires consumers to surrender a raft of personal details (including name, age, marital status, nationality, and whether they are travelling for business purposes) before they are eligible for price quotes.

While the claim is made by IATA that it is to the benefit of the (frequent) traveller, it in fact gives airlines a formidable tool to rob the market place of the transparency it is used to and needs.

Through NDC, the airlines would confer on themselves the ability to raise all fare levels across-the-board and especially fares for business travellers.

This is a particularly lucrative strategy for airlines in markets where big carriers or alliances are dominant, and competition is suboptimal.

Reversing the flow of information, and allowing airlines to tilt the pricing power sharply to their advantage, would be detrimental for buyers and consumers, and would deprive agents of the ability to find the most suitable deal for their customers.

The airlines have a legitimate interest in acting individually to protect their business, but not to act in concert to impose a new anti-consumer business model on consumers and the rest of the travel industry.

Difference between standards and a new business model

All the functional distribution virtues that IATA claims for NDC already exist in today’s world. A significant proportion of GDS transactions use XML, enabling airlines to distribute rich content.

Growing numbers of airlines are distributing that rich content, including product attributes and ancillaries, through the GDSs to travel management companies and other agents, who are able to book these complex products and services using sophisticated robust user interfaces.

In short, if NDC is being designed by IATA to enable the distribution of airline products via XML, it is a solution in search of a problem.

So what’s the solution?

Quite simply, if IATA agrees to make NDC about a data standard developed jointly by all involved stakeholders, we are done.

It can help improve the efficiency of distribution, enrich the purchasing experience, while safeguarding all the great values buyers and consumers have grown accustomed to.

I have said time and again that we are ready to work with IATA on this, and on amending Resolution 787 to this effect, but it takes two to tango.

NB: This is a viewpoint by, Christoph Klenner, secretary general for the European Technology and Travel Services Association (ETTSA). It's in response to a pro-NDC editorial from IATA earlier this week.

Image via Sony Pictures' Groundhog Day