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Southwest is ramping up NDC development as the airline prepares to sell extra-legroom seats and introduce assigned seating.
Speaking during a Feb. 6 Southwest Business webinar, vice president of sales Aileen Furlong and COO Andrew Watterson said NDC will be an enabler for the airline to sell its new products in the GDSs. They added that the airline does not plan to have any NDC-only content.
“It’s a technical enhancement, not some nefarious strategy,” Watterson said.
Furlong added, “It’s not intended to be a tool to take away content or to differentiate.”
Southwest plans to begin booking of assigned seats and extra-legroom seats late this year for flights beginning sometime in 2026. The airline only uses the GDSs for corporate bookings and not for leisure sales. Southwest also works with TMCs via direct connects and its in-house Swabiz booking tool.
In an interview last April, Dave Harvey, Furlong’s predecessor, said the carrier was mostly monitoring NDC developments because…
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