Flight Centre and Amadeus strike NDC partnership

Agent to provide input into Amadeus’ design and build of an NDC-enabled solution Continue reading →

Flight Centre Travel Group will be a key customer in the creation of Amadeus’ new NDC-enabled solution for business and retail travel agencies.

Amadeus has already started to collaborate with several airlines to define a solution that gives agents access to travel content using Iata’s NDC standard.

The objective is to make NDC content easy to access and compare so travel providers and sellers can serve travelers simply, quickly and accurately.

Flight Centre will provide input into Amadeus’ design and build of an NDC-enabled solution.

This will enable travel sellers worldwide to shop, order and pay for flights and related services, in addition to changing and cancelling bookings, using the NDC standard in the Amadeus Selling Platform Connect.

Travel sellers like Flight Centre will be able to give their customers an even richer choice of fares and the option to book NDC-powered ancillary services within an already familiar working environment.

The NDC plans emerged as Flight Centre confirmed that Amadeus will be providing distribution technology for its business across 17 countries in the EMEA and Asia regions.

Amadeus will also provide technology solutions for some of Flight Centre’s online travel agencies in Australia and New Zealand.

Amadeus aims to achieve NDC level 3 certification as an aggregator this year, followed by delivering a first fully scalable solution to travel sellers worldwide in 2019.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner said: “Our approach has always been to evolve with industry developments and the needs of our customers in order to aggregate and offer the widest, most relevant content possible.

“We are committed to ensuring Flight Centre stays ahead of the curve in terms of GDS technology and systems, particularly as new initiatives like NDC emerge. That’s why we are excited to have partnered with Amadeus in our Asia and EMEA businesses.

“We wanted a leading technology partner, not just a GDS supplier, who could work with us to drive our business forward with tech innovation for the benefit of our customers.”

Amadeus business travel executive vice president, Rajiv Rajian, said: “We are proud to be delivering Flight Centre’s distribution and IT needs and we’re excited to have Flight Centre as a driver customer on our NDC journey.

“As we progress on our NDC-X programme, we’re also evolving our entire travel platform to bring together all relevant content from any source – GDS, NDC, airline proprietary APIs, and aggregators – to be distributed via any channel or device.

“The first evolution of our platform is underway and will give travel sellers, like Flight Centre, access to more content, and will give airlines the flexibility to distribute their products and offers however they choose.”