Lufthansa Group has signed a deal with Amadeus to offer its
NDC-sourced content through the global distribution system’s NDC-enabled interfaces.
The agreement covers offers from Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian
Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Air Dolomiti and Eurowings Discover, pushing
Amadeus’ NDC count past 20 airlines. The GDS already has NDC content from Air
France-KLM, British Airways, American Airlines, United Airlines, Singapore Airlines,
Emirates and others.
The Lufthansa Group content, including continuous pricing
and a range of ancillary services, will begin to roll out in the fourth quarter
of this year with additional content and functionalities added over time.
“The Lufthansa Group remains fully committed to shaping the
aviation industry and modernizing air travel experiences for our passengers,” says
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, chief commercial officer and member of the management board
of SWISS.
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“I am excited that with the signing of this groundbreaking
distribution agreement, which also enables the introduction of two NDC models,
we continue on our path to modernize airline retailing together with our
long-term partner Amadeus. Together, as industry leaders, we will substantially
accelerate the penetration of modern industry standards such as NDC on a global
scale.”
Amadeus’ president of travel, Decius Valmorbida, says the
online travel agencies and API-based subscribers have been the earliest adopted
of its NDC solutions, and the company is also seeing strong interest from the
corporate travel segment, which is looking for the post-booking servicing that
Amadeus can now provide through NDC.
Looking ahead, Valmorbida says Amadeus’ three priorities for
NDC include continued development of that post-booking support, search capabilities
that combine the logic of the old EDIFACT system with the new NDC interfaces
and a comprehensive approach that surfaces content everywhere it is needed.
“The integration to all of the other systems that
essentially, let’s say, drink from the source, which is the content. You have
the booking tool, you have the itinerary management, the mobile applications,”
he says.
“You have a whole bunch of downstream systems where you’d
like to see that content not only available on the similar point of sale - for
the agent to be able to be able to transact - but as well in all of this omnichannel
approach where you would like to see the content everywhere.”