NDC, AS IT
SHOULD BE

Navigate the content chaos so you can effectively scale your business

Integrating NDC does not have to be complicated or expensive if the right partners are involved

In fact, it’s the inclusion of the right partners, rather than flying solo — that will allow NDC to scale. Engaging travel management companies (TMCs), online booking tools (OBTs), and global distribution systems (GDSs), like Sabre, is the efficient option to scale NDC in the long-term as part of a successful multi-source content strategy. The emergence of NDC content holds the promise of increasing relevancy, flexibility, and value in travel. It also raises technical, operational, and business questions that must be answered for each link in the travel value chain if NDC is to scale broadly. 

Integrating New Distribution Capability (NDC) does not have to be complicated or expensive if the right partners are involved

In fact, it’s the inclusion of the right partners, rather than flying solo — that will allow NDC to scale. Engaging travel management companies (TMCs), online booking tools (OBTs), and global distribution systems (GDSs), like Sabre, is the efficient option to scale NDC in the long-term as part of a successful multi-source content strategy. The emergence of NDC content holds the promise of increasing relevancy, flexibility, and value in travel. It also raises technical, operational, and business questions that must be answered for each link in the travel value chain if NDC is to scale broadly. 

Chapter 1:

Framing the
challenge

Reaching scale with NDC

Think of NDC as a scorecard, and we want to check all the boxes

To achieve scale, airlines, GDSs, agencies, OBTs and corporate buyers need to fill their lines of the card. No single stakeholder can crack the code alone—we need all boxes filled to win. To help track progress we’ve created a scorecard for scaling NDC. 

On the X-axis, we’ve plotted stakeholders. Each of these stakeholders has their own interests and priorities. While there are overlaps, they are not fully aligned. Understanding where alignment does and doesn’t exist can help forecast challenges, and solutions, to scaling NDC. 

Stakeholders:

Dimensions of scale 

On the Y-axis of the scorecard, we’ve plotted the four dimensions of scale when it comes to NDC. The X-axis shows the stakeholders: each one needs to act across the four dimensions of scale to drive progress.

Performance

This dimension focuses on the technical challenges of scale, which affect speed, reliability, and security.

Content 

What types of offers airlines make available via NDC connections. 

Commercials 

We’re defining commercials in broad terms. In addition to dollars and cents, it includes changing relationship dynamics between stakeholders.

Capabilities 

The NDC functions needed to shop, book and service NDC offers efficiently in the agency and OBT environments.

Our balanced approach makes Sabre a trusted partner for scaling NDC

Sabre sits at the cross-roads of travel. As stewards of a travel marketplace, we engage with all of the stakeholders noted on the scorecard. We have a vested interest in supporting their needs. We encourage collaboration in all that we do: from our NDC Customer Advisory Board (CAB) meetings; to technical integrations with airlines; to piloting new capabilities shoulder-to-shoulder with agencies; to participating in industry forums and working groups. When we speak and act, we’re striving to make improvements that will have industry-wide benefits, not merely create value for one group. 

Chapter 2:

Addressing the
technical aspects

How to perform under pressure

NDC at scale involves big numbers and small timeframes.
We make both happen.

In travel tech, scale means balancing massive volumes—billions of transactions—with lightning-fast speed. Mere seconds could be the difference between a won or lost booking.

Companies like Sabre handle vast data sets quickly to meet growing demand and content fragmentation. The rise of New Distribution Capability (NDC) redefines scale, as airlines must create real-time offers, instead of the traditional model of GDS pulling in the information airlines file every few hours. With real-time updates, the “look-to-book” ratio goes up — more searches without guaranteed sales increases costs for airlines. Some airlines now limit NDC access when travel agencies exceed look-to-book thresholds.

The critical factor is time.

Consumers expect instant results, with research showing that websites loading within one second achieve higher conversion rates. Delays can cause users to abandon searches, reducing sales and revenue. Bottom line: every second that passes increases the risk of losing customers and money. As travel tech pushes the boundaries of speed and scale, the race to meet these expectations becomes ever more crucial.

American
Airlines

2023 Revenue:

$
52,788
 M

Revenue Per Second:

$
1,674

Booking
Holdings

2023 Revenue:

$
21,365
 M

Revenue Per Second:

$
677

American
Express GBT

2023 Revenue:

$
2,290
 M

Revenue Per Second:

$
73

In absolute terms, the 8-second difference between the typical 2-second EDIFACT response time and the 10-second timeout threshold may seem inconsequential. Yet, it represents upwards of thousands of dollars in sales value at risk, while also carrying the weight of additional technical costs stemming from more NDC shops.

There is urgency in addressing the technical performance challenge of scaling NDC, because offer differentiation has yet to take off in full force. NDC and EDIFACT content options are still quite similar, because foundational NDC capabilities are still being deployed. Now is the time to act, before the retailing landscape becomes dramatically more crowded and complicated with dynamic offers.

We collaborate across the industry to tackle these hurdles in a few ways:

Technical
infrastructure

As NDC adoption grows, airlines face increasing shopping volumes, which can mean higher compute requirements that impact response times. Sabre advises airlines to perform a “fitness test” on their tech infrastructure, covering areas like compute power, storage, network speed, and security. Many, including Sabre, are modernizing their tech stacks, shifting to cloud-based environments to meet rising demands. It’s crucial for airlines to go beyond NDC schema compliance and prepare for real-time message volumes so their systems can handle the load without timeouts or outages, making their response times commercially viable. Effective IT strategy is key to supporting NDC’s real-time requirements. 

Size matters:
NDC shopping response messages

Airlines determine what information to include in shopping responses, but larger messages take more time to transmit. To improve response speed, airlines should focus on including essential information and omit unnecessary details. For example, returning the best quality offers that have a higher probability of converting while leaving out the thousands of low-quality options that will inevitably be ignored. Streamlining responses to include only what travel agents and booking tools need will enhance efficiency. In this case, less is more. 

Shopping qualifiers

Another technical facet of performance that Sabre is working on relates to shopping qualifiers. Think of qualifiers as instructions for an airline about what type of offer to create. The more prescriptive the NDC shopping request Sabre sends to airlines, the more airlines can create and respond with “higher quality” offers that serve up more relevancy and value, and that have a higher likelihood to convert. Through Sabre’s NDC Customer Advisory Board (CAB) meetings, we solicit input from agencies to understand what shopping qualifiers would be most useful. We incorporate this feedback into our roadmap. 

Caching

Real-time NDC offer creation isn’t always necessary, especially for less popular routes or when high demand drives up look-to-book ratios. For such cases, pre-constructed offers refreshed every few minutes may suffice. To reduce unnecessary requests, airlines can implement “Airline Profile” standards that help consumers, such as Sabre, verify the shopping request validity prior to passing that request onto the airline. Caching solutions, like Sabre’s “Multi-source cache”, which will store NDC offers temporarily and use business rules and AI to determine the quality and applicability of a cached offer. This reduces the load on airline systems, cuts costs, and boosts response speed while maintaining NDC’s promise of personalized offers. Sabre plans to roll out this solution soon. 

Chapter 3:

Consider content
and commercials

Dealing with the push and pull

NDC success hinges on its benefits outweighing the costs for all stakeholders

Less visible to end users, but no less important to scaling, are the gears of content, capabilities and commercials that must be positioned accurately and lubricated effectively for the NDC flywheel to accelerate. It’s a challenge that’s poised to grow as NDC volumes increase.

Waiting on the promise 

Differentiated content is the driving force behind the pull of NDC, enabling offers like bundled air and ancillaries, corporate-specific deals, and multi-supplier combinations. While NDC promises better margins and personalized experiences, this content remains elusive, with the industry still building foundational infrastructure. Current NDC and EDIFACT offers appear similar, but glimpses of content differentiation, like discounts, are emerging. To ignite broader adoption and enthusiasm, airlines must showcase truly innovative offers. 

Changing how stakeholders engage with each other 

To date, airlines have used surcharges and content restrictions to push NDC adoption (though this approach is being reconsidered). NDC is reshaping commercial dynamics, with some airlines funding agencies to adopt it through development dollars or incentives. However, travel sellers should be cautious about the longevity of airline support. Beyond financials, agencies and corporate buyers must assess their partners’ NDC readiness and strategies. Including NDC in quarterly business reviews could help track progress. 

Chapter 4:

Understanding
ND-Capabilities

How to navigate the layers of technical infrastructure 

A compelling offer does not a great travel experience make. Strip away the ability to shop, book and manage a trip effectively and you might as well not bother leaving the comfort of your couch. 

Collaboration is key for sourcing and selling travel content at scale

Scaling NDC is a multi-faceted challenge. It’s the type of complex challenge that Sabre is tackling on behalf of travel sellers and corporate buyers, thereby reducing the tension they increasingly feel to be both travel experts and technical development shops. In the same vein, TMCs and OBTs provide the necessary capabilities, policy controls and servicing support to keep corporate travel working.

NDC is an increasingly important piece of the puzzle that agencies face to access multiple sources of content efficiently. And while we’ve looked at the topic of scale through the lens of NDC, agencies are also looking to solve this topic for other types of content, including low-cost carrier, hotel, car, and rail, to name a few.

To mitigate risk and lower barriers to adoptions, don’t force NDC in isolation. A tech partner like Sabre, along with operating providers such as TMCs and OBTs, is the efficient option for reaching NDC at scale, long-term.

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