NDC's Inflections • The Company Dime

Some corporate travel program managers who had enabled NDC channels switched them off last year because the aggravation of unsupported features outweighed the benefits of fare access. Having found the savings opportunities to be minimal, some are trying to avoid manual work for agents and confusion for travelers.

NDC transactions, and the agencies handling them, dropped off after growing in the first half of 2024, according to ARC.

Name changes and other unused credit applications remain problematic in many environments.

According to ARC, the number of U.S. travel agencies issuing NDC tickets declined for six consecutive months following American Airlines’ u-turn. NDC tickets as a portion of all ARC tickets rose gradually at the beginning of the year, peaked at 21.5 percent in June, dipped for a few months, and then began slowly growing.

According to GBTA polls of North American buyers, 40 percent of 169 respondents in October said their companies had not implemented NDC — down from 54 percent among 214 respondents a year earlier — while 15 percent indicated it was “too early” or they were not sure.

Each company’s experience of the benefits from and problems with NDC is different, influenced by its mix of TMC, booking tool, GDS and airlines, as well as the routes it flies, the classes of service it uses, the types of fares purchased and its policies.