Amadeus continues to update the travel industry about NDC and the Amadeus Travel Platform

February 1, 2019

Last updated: February 1, 2019

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Amadeus organized a press briefing on NDC in the Amadeus office in The Netherlands, on 23 January

During this session, Ludo Verheggen, Director of Global Air Content Adoption Strategy in Amadeus’ Travel Channels division, revealed key milestones of Amadeus’ NDC-X program, a dedicated program to drive the industrialization of NDC both as an IT provider and as an aggregator.

He described NDC as one of the pillars of the travel industry’s digital transformation. According to Verheggen, now that the first IATA certification levels have been reached, the travel sector faces the challenge of evolving the technological standard to a scalable level allowing for industry wide adoption.

Amadeus has undertaken a global project aimed at strengthening and making its distribution platform, the Amadeus Travel Platform, more flexible and scalable. The first step in this process has been the transition to open systems, which is now complete, to facilitate innovation and collaboration with a range of industry players.

The platform allows travel sellers to access the widest range of content, in a unified, comparable way and within a single workflow, regardless of the type or the source of this content (being GDS, NDC or other APIs). This content can be distributed through any type of channel or interface (be it a travel agency solution, a self-booking tool, an API, chat bots, or others).

The evolution of the Amadeus Travel Platform is being carried out in phases and using agile methodology to accelerate its implementation. 2018 was the year of design and preparation for scalability. 2019 will be the year of implementation. Amadeus will deploy enhanced versions of our leading travel seller solutions, Amadeus Selling Platform Connect and Amadeus Web Services, which will integrate both NDC and non-NDC content. The Amadeus NDC-enabled Web Services will be rolled out in a phased approach as of the first quarter this year. For offline travel agents, NDC content will be gradually made available in Amadeus’ Selling Platform Connect solution as of the second quarter this year. Also, in the second half of this year, Amadeus cytric Travel & Expense, our flagship corporate booking tool, will be enhanced with NDC content.

The NDC-enabled solutions will allow airlines to sell their NDC offers to travel sellers, and for travel sellers to shop, order and pay for flights and related services, in addition to servicing bookings, using the NDC standard. Accessing NDC content alongside other content in one platform will allow travel sellers to serve travelers simply, quickly and accurately, and offer more personalized trips.

Verheggen also took the opportunity to elaborate on the minimum requirements needed to ensure the success of the adoption of NDC for the entire industry: post-booking services, scalability thanks to the implementation of version 17.2 or higher of the NDC standard, incorporation of existing workflows of travel agencies and a good performance of NDC APIs.

Verheggen concluded by saying: “At Amadeus, we think NDC has the potential to deliver new benefits for the entire travel industry”. By working closely together, the industry can unlock new value for travelers, and in so doing, generate more business for all.

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