A lot of the initial rhetoric around NDC was it’s a GDS killer.
Quote from Kathy Morgan, vice president of product management at Sabre Travel Network, in an article on PhocusWire this week.
Sabre makes NDC push, launches new airline commercial platform
Cast your minds back a few years, to the point when the post-NDC launch mud-slinging was at its worst.
The New Distribution Capability peddled by IATA and, behind the scenes, a group of its closest airline friends (namely IAG, American Airlines and Lufthansa) had the, err, capability, to put the future of the global distribution systems into serious doubt.
The overhaul of the airline distribution model being fronted by something as (on the face of it) simple as a new technical standard to connect suppliers to end-users was going to ensure that the "old way of doing things" would come to an end.
Many rejoiced; many were distraught.
The reality, as we're now seeing, is that once everyone shifted away from the hyperbole on their respective sides (and in the media, let's face it), there was always going to be an inevitable and sensible way for most to continue to work together.
And, in fact, perhaps having more parties involved in the development of NDC (rather than just airlines) will, over time, ensure it is a better project for all.
The example of NDC is a good lesson for all, and a comforting reminder to those who prefer to take deeper breaths and figure it all out in a structured and measured way.
The travel, tourism and hospitality sector is, like any other, full of spin and conjecture about what is likely to fail, die or be crushed.
This is perhaps even more acute when developments in the industry are led nowadays almost exclusively by exciting and fundamental changes that emanate from the digital world.
Yet there is a remarkable resilience in the sector that illustrates that models evolve (rather than die) and that, thinking momentarily about outside of our tech bubbles, consumers are often slow to alter their behavior.
Perhaps the best example of this is the travel agency world - a pocket of the industry that has apparently been knocking on death's door for 25 years.
Companies and models survive because they have smart people working within them, because sometimes the hype is not worth listening to and wiser heads prevail, and often things just work well the way they are.