AirGateway & Theta - A winning partnership to extend choice to the traveller with NDC!
As the airlines move to a position of “travel retailer” rather than “provider of seats”, New Distribution Capability technology (NDC) has been designed and implemented by the industry body, IATA, to facilitate personalised search and book of differentiated and tailor-made products. Such products are presented for sale to travel sellers via the usual channels, mixed with offers coming from the existing global distribution systems (GDS).
AirGateway provides seamless access to NDC capabilities for travel sellers worldwide. When implemented within large online travel agencies (OTAs) or corporate travel management companies (TMCs), NDC offers many more personalised choices for travel but there became a need to provide more transparency around the offer itself and particularly the pricing advantages compared to legacy GDS channels.
AirGateway entrusted Theta with the project of creating a digital tool to show the parity between NDC content and offers coming from the GDS.
The end traveller is the overall winner as travel sellers gain the ability to compare and select the best option for their clients.
Founded in 2016, AirGateway provides NDC capabilities ready to be used by any certified IATA agency in the world, be that via Bookingpad, the end-to-end agent desktop solution, or application programming interface (API) integrations.
AirGateway currently partners with over 25 major NDC-enabled airlines especially in the French, German and UK markets. Over 175 agencies and 2000 agents worldwide use AirGateway’s solutions.
Challenges
- - Showing price and content parity between GDS and NDC content
- - Providing an easy, one-click NDC booking channel
- - Creating trust in the New Distribution Capability channel
- - Maximizing the use of NDC to ensure more personalised offers are presented to the traveller
Results with Theta
- - Clear pricing comparison between GDS and NDC booking methods
- - Increased NDC bookings
- - A tangible proof how NDC improves competitiveness, bottom line, and operational efficiency of travel sellers
Why Theta?
Founded by two travel industry experts, Theta brings invaluable knowledge on:
- - Travel technologies, including GDS and NDC
- - Innovative digital solutions to respond to specific needs
- - Deep understanding of the operational processes involved in proposing and booking air offers
- - Extensive experience of travel seller after-sales & back office processes
Trust the Distribution Channel:
Theta’s expertise in digital and application software lead to the creation of a tailor-made solution that would allow travel sellers to easily compare offers coming from both the NDC and GDS channels in one screen.
When searching for a trip in the GDS channel, the feature automatically searches for the rates related to the same trip in the NDC channel, then generates a pop-up that provides comparative prices and allows a travel seller to proceed with an NDC booking in just one click.
Reporting and Statistics:
In addition to providing clear views on pricing options, the tool also provides reporting and statistics on what city pairs return the best NDC rates, shortening the search time for travel sellers for future sales.
Theta : the preferred partner for NDC implementation to travel sellers
Following this partnership Theta is now AirGateway’s preferred partner for NDC integration.
“It is crucial for us to collaborate with a company that understands our core business, our challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead. Within a matter of days, Theta turned our vision into a tangible solution that met the goals we had set: Using digital innovation to create trust in NDC and ultimately increase bookings! This is the beginning of a valuable partnership “
Jorge Diaz, CEO
