American
Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has renewed its distribution agreement
with British Airways and Iberia for a further multi-year period, the TMC has announced. The agreement has been expanded to develop and distributing NDC content through the global
distribution systems (GDSs) with which the airlines’ parent company,
International Airlines Group (IAG), has a deal.
The
companies say they have “a joint ambition to achieve significant bookings of
NDC fares throughout 2022” and new NDC content is expected to be available in the
Neo online booking tool by early 2022.
Mark
Muren, head of global sales at British Airways, said: “It is more important
than ever to work collaboratively with partners to build a stable foundation
for the recovery of global travel while simultaneously pushing for innovation
and efficiency. This agreement with GBT accomplishes both and I am delighted to
be working even more closely together to implement NDC functionality and new
NDC-enabled solutions for our mutual customers. GBT’s endorsement and strong
level of commitment will meaningfully accelerate the industry’s transition to
next-generation content and delivery systems.”
Rajiv Ahluwalia, GBT’s senior vice president of partner solutions
& supply marketplace, said: “This agreement recognises the value of our
existing relationship, and ensures our clients receive the benefits of both
traditional and NDC content over the coming years. We continue to work with our
airline and GDS partners to develop new, value-add content for our mutual
customers in all channels.”