Travelport's news that it has become the first GDS to reach the highest level of NDC accreditation as an aggregator is a tipping point.
The GDS says that after working with UK TMC Meon Valley Travel it has become the first GDS to reach level 3 accreditation as an aggregator, which means it is considered capable of managing both offers and orders in a compliant way.
Derek Sharp, Travelport's senior VP and MD of air commerce, said "We are grateful to IATA for this recognition and delighted to be the first travel commerce platform to now be fully NDC-Certified for the multisource era in distribution...This NDC status will complement that. It will also complement our extensive existing API connections and our valued tools for critical workflows, servicing and synchronization. This is a complex process for all participants and we look forward to working with other partners in making this new era a success."
Travelport also announced it was working with Farelogix to implement the first such NDC connection with a major global airline, although it did not name the airline involved.
Yanik Hoyles, IATA's director for the NDC programme, added, "GDSs are a fundamental business partner for NDC to drive significant volumes. For that reason, we welcome Travelport as the first GDS to become NDC level 3 certified as an aggregator. As a certified aggregator, Travelport will now be able to bring NDC to their existing customer base and broaden the scope to a wider range of airlines."
The Travelport announcement marks a tipping point. All of the players in the business travel value chain have been vying for position, as highlighted by the many recent announcements on NDC and direct connects. The distribution environment is unlikely to ever be the same again. Expect similar announcements from Sabre and Amadeus in due course.
IATA's registry of accredited companies shows the current status as below, with 115 companies in total having achieved accreditation at one of the levels.
Some 39 of those companies registered as level 3 are airlines; 34 are IT providers, 15 are aggregators and 10 are sellers, which includes travel management companies HRG and Click Travel.
Some companies are listed more than once. Amadeus, for example, has level 3 accreditation as an IT provider but only level 1 (offering post-booking ancillaries) as an aggregator.