Flight Centre has signed a deal with Amadeus to work together on a NDC-based project to distribute flights.
As part of the agreement, Flight Centre will also be using Amadeus’ technology across 17 countries in the EMEA (including the UK and Ireland), and Asia regions.
The two companies will co-operate in Amadeus’ creation of a NDC-enabled solution, a programme that goes under the title of NDC-X. This aims to build a system allowing more flight content to be sold through TMCs and other third parties.
Flight Centre owns TMC brands such as FCM Travel Solutions, Corporate Traveller and Stage and Screen Travel Services.
Graham Turner, managing director of Flight Centre Travel Group said: “We are committed to ensuring Flight Centre stays ahead of the curve in terms of GDS technology and systems, particularly as new initiatives like NDC emerge.
“We wanted a leading technology partner, not just a GDS supplier, who could work with us to drive our business forward with tech innovation for the benefit of our customers.”
Amadeus said it was “committed” to achieving NDC level 3 aggregator status from IATA this year, and plans to launch a “fully scalable” NDC solution next year. Amadeus’ rival GDS owner Travelport has already achieved NDC level 3 certification.
Rajiv Rajian, executive vice president of business travel at Amadeus, said, “We are proud to be delivering Flight Centre’s distribution and IT needs and we’re excited to have Flight Centre as a driver customer on our NDC journey.
“As we progress on our NDC-X program, we’re also evolving our entire travel platform to bring together all relevant content from any source (GDS, NDC, airline proprietary APIs, and aggregators) to be distributed via any channel or device.
“The first evolution of our platform is underway and will give travel sellers, like Flight Centre, access to more content, and will give airlines the flexibility to distribute their products and offers however they choose.”