About Our Industry

A Global Distribution System (GDS) is a centralized technology platform that enables travel agencies and corporate booking tools to search compare and book airline flights and other travel services. GDS platforms aggregate flight schedules fares and availability from multiple airlines and distribute this content to travel sellers worldwide. Amadeus Sabre and Travelport are the three major global GDSs while Travelsky is the leading GDS in China.

New Distribution Capability (NDC) is an XML-based communication standard developed by IATA which allows airlines to move away from one-size-fits-all offers and pricing. NDC enables airlines to distribute customized and dynamic offers including fare bundles and ancillary services to travel sellers either directly or via aggregators.

EDIFACT is a legacy messaging standard used in traditional GDS distribution while NDC is a modern XML-based standard developed by IATA. EDIFACT enables standardized but static content distribution whereas NDC enables dynamic personalized offer creation and richer ancillary content.

Airlines are investing in NDC to gain more control over their product distribution reduce dependency on legacy GDS systems and to distribute customized offers. NDC also enables airlines to distribute ancillaries and branded fares more effectively through indirect channels.

NDC will not immediately replace EDIFACT but the share of bookings distributed via NDC is increasing at the expense of EDIFACT bookings. Both standards currently co-exist in a hybrid distribution environment for many airlines. While NDC is currently seen as the distribution standard for modern airline retailing, EDIFACT still serves as the standard for global reach and servicing stability requiring airlines to manage both protocols simultaneously for the foreseeable future. The rapid ascent of Agentic AI has triggered questions about the future need for NDC but for now the consensus is that NDC will remain the go-to standard for modern airline distribution.

ONE Order is an IATA industry initiative that aims to unify airline order management. It replaces traditional booking records such as PNRs e-tickets and EMDs with a single unified customer order. This simplifies fulfillment delivery and accounting by creating a single source of truth for every traveler's journey.

In a Full Content agreement an airline commits to provide all of its content (fares, flights and seats) to a GDS in exchange for reduced GDS booking fees. While this allows for lower gross booking fees it severely limits the airline from shifting volume away from the GDS and often serves to reinforce strategic GDS dependence. Full Content agreements were initially created after airline websites became a competing channel to the GDS and travel agency.

Next to Full Content models there is the concept of GDS Parity where an airline's only obligation towards the GDS is to provide the same content as to any other GDS. Between Full Content and GDS Parity various hybrid models exist which allow for distribution freedom for the airline's own channels (third party parity) or direct connects (aggregator parity).

Distribution KPIs can help airlines measure the effectiveness and cost efficiency of channels. Key metrics may include net distribution cost per booking channel mix NDC adoption rates booking share by distribution partner and fare brand mix and ancillary attachment by distribution channel.