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THE PACE OF CHANGE

BUYERS BEWARE

Despite industry progress in connecting the dots between airlines’ NDC strategies at one end of the chain and corporates at the other, Business Travel Association chief executive Clive Wratten describes the last 12 months as "another year of snail-like progress."

"We're long through with any issue with NDC as a principle; we're very supportive and have invested a lot of money," says Wratten. "But with the slow speed of progress from airlines and complexity of servicing, it hasn't moved on particularly quickly."

As such, Wratten says he understands the disappointment and frustration from the ‘stick’ approach from airlines as they try to drive NDC adoption by penalising TMCs that do not enable NDC bookings. Such an approach generally only works if things are ‘perfect’, Wratten believes. When they are not, they can deteriorate the perception of services offered by TMCs to business travellers.

The ‘stick’ approach isn't always permanent, adds Wratten. British Airways, for example, has "gone to being really collaborative with the TMC," he says, and he cites Lufthansa as another example of a carrier that is working well with the TMC community as it executes its NDC strategy.

For one buyer at a major corporate that BTN Europe spoke with, their biggest gripe was neither the accessibility of NDC content nor the servicing of fares. Instead, it was the threat it poses to their duty of care programme.

"NDC has so far made managing travel more complicated for myself as a buyer and for our travellers, and we are all asking many questions: What is it our travellers really need? Can that be delivered in an NDC environment? Are there savings to be had by taking NDC content? At what cost is that to our duty of care to travellers? We’ve got serious geopolitical events occurring in the world right now so we have to take a step back and re-evaluate what we’re doing," they said.

"From a financial perspective I would say we've not yet seen much impact [from NDC fares] but quality of service and leakage are our prime concerns, the latter with regards to keeping track of employees’ travel plans." They continue: "Corporate travellers need quality service online and offline. We could turn on NDC content in our booking tool but, with some airlines, that gives me another problem around managing ticket changes and how that’s serviced."

The biggest problem of all, they add, is that travellers are now frequently seeing better fares – NDC fares – on non-preferred channels, resulting in leakage and travellers slipping out of established duty of care processes. "The days of ‘I found it cheaper on the internet’ are back with a vengeance," they explain. "As an industry we actually moved away from that for a while and enjoyed reasonable content parity so we’ve taken a big step backwards. Corporates shouldn’t need to be pulling in compliance teams to ensure people are booking through the traditional TMC channel. I can’t overstate how important duty of care is."

SWITCHED ON

Corporates that have switched NDC content on for their travellers have experienced a range of outcomes, as BTN heard in conversation with a number of US-based buyers. Others remain cautious and are yet to enable it, be it by conscious choice or because of their travel partners' inability to deliver it.

Rita Visser, director of global travel sourcing & GPO at Oracle, says her company turned on NDC content last April through Sabre’s Red 360 platform – and not just for American Airlines. "It changed our programme," she says. "We had to be much more collaborative with our booking tool and with our agency, even down to our [global distribution system] levels. We bring issues to them. I think it forced collaboration on their side, so I see that as a good thing. We looked at it and said we can't put our travellers in a position to question the integrity of what we bring to them, so that's why we turned it on."

Similarly, another buyer pointed to the availability – or not – of certain fares and the price discrepancy between direct channels and TMCs where NDC has not been enabled. "People look online at their favourite airline then go into Concur or whatever online booking tool to book it. They're like, 'Oh, wait a second, this isn't right'," says Karoline Mayr, director, global travel, Brink’s. "They were wondering why we are selling these higher fares, and it immediately caused an issue for us and for the travel management company. I'm trying to get the content. We're looking for a tool with a direct connect to bring it in."

Another buyer says their company, in the absence of NDC content via their TMC and OBT, allows travellers to book direct but only through the airline’s dot com site and only using their company email address. This ensures all bookings are captured, using Traxo, and brought back under the company’s radar.

BUNDLING UP

One of the key benefits that NDC was expected to deliver was access to specific fares, or bundles, that included the sort of extras corporates might require. While many buyers BTN spoke with said they were not getting bundles, they are in fact available in the market – or at least some version of them, according to suppliers and consultants. 

Finnair launched corporate bundles in February. "PrioFlex is addressing the key needs that we have heard corporates talk about – priority services from check-in, security, onboarding together, with the flexibility the traveller needs all in one package," says Finnair VP of global sales and channel management Jenni Suomela. "We are able to offer this to our corporate customers via modern channels only." 

United also offers 30 different bundles, with bundles meaning the ability to display a corporate negotiated fare with an ancillary included in the price point, says Anthony Toth. They're available on "any NDC-enabled platform except the GDS", he says. They also are available in Concur and Serko’s Zeno online booking tools via Travelfusion, and from Kayak for Business, Spotnana, Navan and AmTrav via a direct API.  

Toth says that there is also standalone merchandise displayed in a "mall format" for corporate customers using one of the merchandise-capable platforms and aggregators. Customers have the choice of either showing United bundles or standalone merchandise, but they generally prefer the latter, he says.  

The system can read entitlements for either bundles or standalone merchandise, meaning it understands when a traveller has status, a subscription such as for club access or WiFi, and Corporate Preferred Elite benefits, "and soon we will add Jetstream permissions," says Toth. Ancillaries that a customer is already supposed to receive are not offered in the 'mall' display. He adds that the customer profile lives with the carrier in two places: its frequent flyer database and in its B2B corporate ecosystem. 

Buyers are now taking the company benefits and entitled benefits and having conversations about how they want to buy travel at United Airlines, says Toth. "That's the next level of API that's happening right now, and we're really excited about it because it's what NDC was intended for," he says. "It's about getting rich content in front of buyers that allow them to create the exact experience they want for their travellers when they're flying on business." 

Toth also noted that buyers need to consider merchandising their travel policy "because absent of doing it, your travellers are going to buy it," he says. "If you’re going to start to get into NDC, in order to expose content that includes merchandise, you have to decide what’s going to be in company policy and what’s not." 

United has some buyers that provide certain benefits whether or not a traveller has status, says Toth. There are also some that don’t allow or reimburse for any merchandise. "In order to avoid friction with travellers, let's show it," he says. "Let’s make it crystal clear that they have to tender their own credit card for [ancillaries]. So that discussion needs to occur before a buyer flips on NDC."