IATA’s NDC Study Finds Lack of Awareness Among Agents

Last December, IATA announced that it was collaborating with a group of seven travel agency associations around the world to conduct a study to evaluate agents’ understanding of the New Distribution Capability, the messaging standard developed to facilitate airline merchandising through intermediaries.

The study has been released, and perhaps its most startling finding is that after nearly three years of discussion, including an intense anti-NDC lobbying campaign by GDSs and their representative associations and a pitched battle against approval of the NDC framework document, more than half of the 1,034 agents surveyed said they had never heard of NDC before participating in the survey.

Titled “NDC: Travel Agencies’ Enabler to Success,” the report was authored by Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research Group and Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, managing partner of the T2 Impact travel technology consultancy. They interviewed 22 agency executives in depth by telephone; the other agents responded to questions via online survey.

Whether they were aware of NDC or were just learning about it, the agents were enthusiastic about the NDC concept, expressing the hope that it would, in the end, ease one of the pain points in their working lives.

One of the other key findings of the study was the dissatisfaction with the status quo when it comes to booking branded fares—fares bundled with services such as advance seat selection, checked bags, and priority boarding—and a la carte ancillary products.

The agents surveyed said they want better access to airlines’ complete catalog of fares, products, and offers. They want more efficiency in the booking process. They believe NDC-enabled processes might help achieve those goals.

The study also found that NDC-enabled processes must be usable in multiple GDS environments, including the green screen. That is likely to meet with resistance among airlines, who blame the displays for helping to commoditize the airline product by reducing it to fares and schedules. In fact, IATA director general Tony Tyler kicked off the NDC campaign in March 2012 with a blistering attack on the green screen, saying it failed to keep up with airlines’ desire for more modern sales techniques.

Over the years, GDS companies have responded to complaints about the green screen by developing desktops that are more akin to consumer travel sites. But many agents, particularly those who are experienced, prefer the command-driven GDS native display. “NDC providers, which include airlines, GDSs, mid- and back-office software firms and other travel technology firms, must create ways to present airline products and enable booking via both GDS native displays and through agency desktop applications, which use graphically rich user interfaces,” the study says.

The study found that agents most often use airline websites to book ancillary products, and having to toggle between a GDS and an airline site is not an ideal situation.

“I estimate my front-line agents lose up to two hours of productivity going to airline websites to book seats and take care of other client requests, and to enter these transactions in our mid-office system. This isn’t sustainable,” the chief executive officer of a regional travel agency in the U.S. said.

The full study can be downloaded here.