Last month, ARC hosted the third in-person meeting of the NDC Advancement Working Group in our Arlington office. The conversation between attendees, which included representatives from airlines, travel agencies, technology providers and the GDSs, was once again spirited as we continued our march toward NDC best practices.
The discussion focused on the biggest challenges for our partners related to the servicing of NDC transactions. These areas include unused value, qualifiers, ticketing time limits, order change notifications, exchanges, rules visibility, voids and debit memos.
While we are making steady progress toward our goal of industry-backed best practices, I wanted to give insight into the level of care we take when working collaboratively to find solutions to the important issues.
Our meetings follow the same pattern: Attendees are placed in small groups of 6-8 people to discuss NDC transaction use cases. Each group identifies and confirms the challenges, possible solutions and potential drawbacks. Each stakeholder group is represented at every table so different viewpoints are heard.
After the group discussions, we come together to present the findings and ideas to the entire working group. Other stakeholders’ feedback often leads to further discussion and sometimes even debate. This process works well to get buy-in from the entire group, which is part of the goal when it comes to the final best practice we’ll publish.
Using an example from our most recent meeting, the first small group discussion focused on use cases around unused value on an agency-issued ticket. When a customer wants to exchange a ticket or use credit with the airline—or across multiple airlines—what is the ideal process? We discussed how an unused value ledger could simplify this process but would need to have multiple major airlines to buy in for success. There would also be issues around shared data and unique passenger identifiers that need to be addressed before this could be implemented.
I look forward to GBTA Convention 2024 as another opportunity to hear from the industry and meet with stakeholders outside of the working group. Our group will meet again in September. We’re excited to share the first draft of best practices
The enthusiasm for our work remains strong throughout this process and we are committed to helping the entire industry ecosystem navigate the modern retailing world.
There is still plenty of work to be done, but I am confident in our goal of publishing NDC best practices by the end of the year.
