Air France KLM group and Amadeus have signed a new distribution deal that will allow the airline’s NDC offering to be made available to travel agents through various Amadeus platforms.
While the full integration of the NDC offer is expected to be complete in the first half of 2021, the details and timing for the South African rollout are still to be set, said Wouter Vermeulen, gm Southern Africa for Air France KLM.
“NDC is a key innovation for Air France KLM as it allows our customers to benefit from more attractive and customised offers, such as continuous pricing and tailor-made bundles. This agreement is an important step in our distribution network, especially for travel agencies with a higher level of servicing needs such as business travel agencies,” said Pieter Bootsma, chief revenue officer for Air France KLM.
To access the content, agents will need to sign bilateral agreements with AF/KL and Amadeus, which will allow them to search, compare, book and service AF/KL content in one merged display through their go-to Amadeus solution, whether the Travel API or selling platform Connect. Corporate travellers would also be able to book NDC through Amadeus’s citric Travel and Expense platform, explained Amadeus in a statement.
But, according to an article on Skift.com, Air France KLM is passing the costs on to agents, who will be charged a fee to book this NDC content through Amadeus, although it is believed that this amount will be less than the US$13 (R210) GDS surcharge per one-way ticket that Air France KLM has charged agencies since 2018.
“Many aspects still need to be clarified and finalised per market, including the discussion around fees, so it is not possible to confirm this information at this stage. What we can say is that if you book outside the GDS you will not pay a GDS fee, so it is clear that there will not be a double fee,” responded Wouter.
Ceo of XL Travel, Marco Ciocchetti, said the trade had expected the cost of incorporation of NDC content in the GDS to be passed along, in a reversal of the traditional GDS pricing model. He said airlines were charged by GDSs to display their content by means of a fee per segment booked through the GDS and this would change with the incorporation of NDC content.
“We do expect that the charge for displaying NDC content will be passed on to agents rather than airlines. This does make sense to us as we would need to hire a developer if we wanted to individually integrate an airline’s NDC API content with our internal booking systems. It is far more convenient if the GDSs are able to integrate the various airline NDC and traditional content, as this would mean that agents can continue working off a single booking system,” said Marco.
