Emirates has announced a commercial
agreement that will allow travel agencies connected to Travelport to avoid the
airline’s surcharge on bookings via global distribution systems (GDS) that come
into effect today.
The airline announced in February that it would introduce charges
of up to US$25 for bookings made through GDSs from 1 July.
As part of the new agreement, Travelport-connected agencies will be able to
gain simplified access to Emirates’ NDC content and services via Travelport
Smartpoint and the airline APIs once the agencies sign new NDC-specific
agreements with both companies.
Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ chief commercial officer, said
travellers would benefit from “highly personalised offers” and
travel agencies “even better and more bespoke services”.
The two companies have also agreed a new long-term agreement to
enable the distribution of Emirates’ NDC content via the Travelport+ platform and
an extension to their longstanding IT agreement.
Jason Clarke, chief commercial officer, travel partners at Travelport,
said: “This series of agreements highlights the determination of
both Travelport and Emirates to re-invent travel retailing and push the
boundaries of what’s possible. With a shared vision for the future, our
long-standing collaboration will continue to go from strength-to-strength.”
The announcement comes on the same day that Dubai-based IT
provider TPConnects unveiled a new subscription‐based global marketplace connecting airlines and
travel sellers, called NDCmarketplace.com.
The company said that the marketplace would give travel agents a way to search, compare, book airline
tickets, ancillaries and related services on NDC‐certified low‐cost and
full‐service airlines, from one central location without losing their GDS
incentives or incurring GDS surcharges.
It will
also allow agencies to create sub agents, access staff and create role
permissions, and add markups using multiple currencies. Participating airlines
on the other side will be able to create and distribute dynamic, tailored
offers through travel agents as they receive specific information at shopping
time.
Rajendran Vellapalath, CEO of TPConnects, said, “One of the
biggest challenges in the slow adoption of NDC by the travel agency community
is the multiple NDC agency portals rolled out by individual airlines or the APIs
with various schemas and versions deployed by NDC certified airlines in
addition to the low‐cost carrier’s already existing store fronts.
“Agents have to switch between the screens to search and
compare the best offers or end up paying additional surcharges for NDC bookings
made through traditional channels or soon will end up paying a distribution
fee. NDCMarketplace.com is bringing content from both the traditional channel
as well as the NDC and LCC channels in to one screen, combined with rich
content from Routehappy, enabling the travel agents to leverage all the
benefits.”
The portal enables clients to set credit limits for sub
agencies, generate ticketing and transaction reports, issue cancellations and
refunds, and select from a broad range of ancillary services.