I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the implementation of New Distribution Capability (NDC) by the airlines and global distribution systems (GDSs)… and how it has been truly terrible. But my issue has never been that NDC is bad across the board. It’s just that airlines like American have been handling the rollout in a strangely punitive way that has only created fierce opposition in the agency community. Now, we have a case study with Breeze that shows a positive side of NDC, so I decided to highlight it.
Breeze has announced that it has started selling tickets through Priceline effective this week, and this is a big deal. To explain why, I’m going to need to back up a bit.
For years airlines have sold tickets via EDIFACT, an ancient solution which requires GDSs like Sabre or Travelport to be the brains of the system. These GDSs take fares filed publicly through a company that airlines themselves own called ATPCO. Then they get real-time availability for…
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