After NDC Adoption, Air Canada Will Charge a Fee for EDIFACT Bookings

Another major North American carrier has announced details for its NDC rollout.

Ahead of its NDC rollout, Air Canada this week announced that it would start charging agencies a per-ticket fee of somewhere between US$20 to US$30 on bookings made through traditional EDIFACT channels starting on June 14. The fee will not apply to Air Canada’s NDC channels, Amadeus NDC, or its direct booking channels.

Air Canada said that it will also leave available seat inventory buckets open longer for NDC in direct channels, though it will not change how traditional EDIFACT requests are made.

At the same time, Air Canada told media this week that it plans to offer incentives of about US$2 to book through NDC through the end of 2024 in order to support the trade’s transition to NDC bookings. Air Canada said that the incentive is meant to help offset the revenue lost from moving from a traditional channel.

While all NDC fares will be available around that June 14 date, all of Air Canada’s domestic basic fares are in NDC channels now.  The carrier will not remove content from its legacy channels, something that American Airlines did during its NDC rollout earlier in April. Air Canada will instead add additional content to both its NDC channels and its direct channels, including best available seat inventory, discounted ancillary pricing on paid and preferred seats, along with the ability to use promotional codes, Flight Pass, and continuous pricing.

All the details of Air Canada’s rollout can be found on its NDC-specific webpage.