Panelists Decry ‘Shrill Voices’ on NDC, Urge Détente

WASHINGTON – The travel industry should end the noise and polarizing debate surrounding IATA’s New Distribution Capability and get on with resolving the issues.

That was the overriding sentiment of panelists at the APG World Connect Conference here. The conference theme was “Airlines and Travel Agencies: How Do We End the Cold War?”

“It really is time to bury the hatchet. We’ve gone through the rhetoric long enough,” Farelogix chief Jim Davidson said.

“I have no doubt we’ll work our way through this,” Scott Alvis, chief marketing officer of Amadeus North America, said.

Overblown?
NDC has been one of the most contentious issues in the ménage a trois of travel agencies, airlines and GDS companies since the airline commission cuts of nearly 20 years ago.

The issue has been plagued by IATA’s less-than-elegant introduction of the NDC concept and the confusing Resolution 787 that laid the foundation for the NDC standard – not to mention opposition from some industry quarters, including a campaign by bloggers and lobbyists to stop it in its tracks.

The “noise” surrounding NDC has been “a bit overblown,” said Chris Phillips, managing director of distribution strategy for Delta Air Lines.

The panel discussion at the World Connect conference moved beyond what Alvis called “the shrill voices and the polarization,” focusing instead on the real issues that need to be worked through.

The core issue, Alvis said, is “moving from Edifact to XML, and there’s no argument about that. The challenge is the pace.”

Customer at the center
Phillips said he sees “a lot of collaboration” among the three sides of the airline-agency-GDS triangle, “and the customer is at the center of the three.”

Delta has been focused on creating new products to shake off the bonds of commoditization, and “Scott [Alvis] and I spend a lot of time talking about this,” Phillips said. “We want [the GDSs] to have the ability to acquire that content. We think NDC can enable that.”

Alvis observed that “NDC has a level of complexity and sophistication about it,” adding, “There are a handful of airlines that are able to invest in it.”

Davidson agreed. “Not all airlines will make the investment,” he said. He noted that it has been some time since the EMD was launched into the marketplace, but to this day, many airline systems “don’t understand the concept.”

Agents, prepare yourselves
Lars Thykier, chairman of the World Travel Agency Association Alliance, said there is still not as much collaboration among airlines, agents and GDS companies as he’d like to see.

“We need to have a positive working relationship,” he said. “We’re all battling each other. We need to change.”

To be ready for an NDC world, “agents need to prepare themselves for some development costs,” he said. We need to revitalize ourselves.”

Some of the issues that need to be resolved involve privacy concerns and how NDC will work with intermodal travel. Train-to-plane trips are far more common in Europe than in the U.S.

Resolving the issues with NDC will require leadership, Alvis said, and a more “statesmanlike” approach. If two sides can’t agree, “you try to find a third way,” he said.