ARC publishes best practices for NDC transactions: Travel Weekly

ARC has published best-practice guidelines for the servicing and support of airline tickets booked with New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology.

The document puts forward 20 best practices in categories such as executing exchanges, debit memos and waivers. It was developed mostly over the course of this year by ARC’s NDC Advancement Working Group. The group, which first met in person in February, was comprised of representatives from seven airlines, six travel technology providers (including GDSs), six OTAs and ticket consolidators, and 17 travel agencies. Its charge was to address issues negatively addressing NDC adoption, including servicing snafus that have drawn the ire of travel advisors. 

Though airlines began completing their first NDC-enabled transactions in 2016, adoption of the digital merchandising technology has gone much slower than IATA and many airlines would have liked. In October, 19.1% of air transactions settled by ARC were NDC-enabled, with OTAs accounting…