Airline NDC and travel bidding: The new era of airline distribution

Airlines face a challenge: they struggle to make a profit and please diverse passenger groups at the same time. Traditional ticket sales work well for basic flights, but fail at upselling upgrades, meals, or eco-options, because legacy systems weren’t built for personalization or sustainability.

This is where New Distribution Capability (NDC) surfaces as the solution. This article examines how NDC and airline bidding work in sync, and why this combination is a promising step up in global airline digital transformation.

What is NDC, and why was it created?

According to IATA’s definition, NDC represents a communication protocol that enables airlines to distribute their full range of products and services through travel agents and booking platforms.

The creation of NDC in travel industry was driven by necessity. Airlines saw their premium services vanish in outdated booking channels.

NDC airline distribution operates on XML-based communication standards, which are a way to leave the one-size-fits-all approach behind. Rather than forcing airlines to squeeze their entire value proposition into rigid data formats, NDC allows carriers to present dynamic pricing, detailed descriptions, and personalized offers to travelers regardless of where they book.

EDIFACT-based GDS vs NDC

To comprehend why NDC vs GDS represents such a turning point, recall EDIFACT — a bandwidth-constrained system where every data transmission was costly. This led to complex booking workflows where agents manually checked fares, availability, and rules. While functional when flights required expert intermediaries, it’s now outdated, and for various reasons:

• Fragmented transaction workflows. Each inquiry demands discrete system queries, transforming flight selection into a multi-stage process.
• Restricted content presentation. Airlines transmit only fundamental elements, excluding service descriptions, visual assets, or individualized propositions.
• Inflexible pricing mechanisms. Dynamic revenue optimization becomes practically impossible when operating within frameworks designed for static fare structures.
• Ancillary product invisibility. Revenue-generating supplementary services that airlines seek to promote remain absent from traditional GDS communication protocols.
• Same old user experiences. Regardless of traveler profiles or preferences, all customers receive identical, stripped-down flight information.

EDIFACT vs NDC flight distribution — Photo by COAX

The limitation of travel distribution channels constructed on EDIFACT infrastructure extends beyond technological obsolescence. These systems are relics of outdated operational needs. Travelers expected Amazon-like ease, Netflix-level personalization, and Spotify-speed delivery, not booking processes stuck in the 1990s.

Understanding the NDC booking flow

Traditional booking systems rely on Global Distribution Systems to assemble offers from separate data sources — flight availability from airline reservation systems, pricing from ATPCO repositories, and schedules from OAG databases.

New Distribution Capability changes this process by allowing airlines to create and control their offers directly. Through XML-based data exchange, carriers distribute personalized flight offers with dynamic pricing and tailored ancillaries across multiple channels.

The NDC flight booking process typically looks like this:

• Offer creation. Airlines use NDC standards to build personalized offers combining flights, seats, baggage, and ancillaries with flexible pricing strategies.
• Offer transmission. XML-based NDC protocols distribute these offers to various channels, including GDSs, aggregators, and direct airline connections.
• Offer aggregation. Distribution partners collect and display offers with enhanced visual content and detailed service information.
• Direct booking. Travelers book directly with airlines through NDC protocols, streamlining transactions and providing airlines with valuable customer behavior data.

With this airline distribution model, airlines adjust offers in real-time based on market demand and customer preferences while maintaining brand integrity across all distribution channels.

Key participants of the air travel NDC process

The airline NDC ecosystem brings together traditional industry players alongside newer technology providers, creating a more dynamic marketplace:

• Airlines. Primary content creators who build and control their flight offers, ancillaries, and pricing strategies through NDC standards.
• Travel management companies (TMCs). Corporate travel specialists who integrate NDC capabilities to access enhanced airline content and deliver tailored business travel solutions.
• Global Distribution Systems (GDSs). Established booking platforms Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport now support NDC alongside traditional content formats.
• Flight aggregators. Technology companies that collect and normalize NDC content from multiple airlines, presenting unified booking options to travel sellers.

NDC process — Photo by COAX

NDC acts as a common language, not a platform. Airlines gain retail-style flexibility to bundle services, while distributors gain access to dynamic pricing and richer content. Each player retains its role but contributes to a more personalized and agile booking ecosystem.

NDC in practice: Understanding the integration models

Airlines implement NDC through three primary integration approaches. These models reflect how carriers balance direct control with market reach.

NDC with GDSs

Traditional Global Distribution Systems have adapted their platforms to support New Distribution Capability standards alongside legacy booking formats. Major GDSs now process NDC requests and responses, allowing travel agents to access enhanced airline content without changing their existing booking workflows.

United Airlines NDC implementation through GDS channels demonstrates how legacy carriers maintain broad agent access while delivering richer product information. Travel agents can now view and book United’s premium cabin upgrades, extra legroom seats, and meal preferences directly through familiar GDS interfaces, expanding revenue beyond basic ticket sales.

NDC with flight aggregators

Flight aggregators collect and normalize NDC content from multiple airlines, creating unified shopping experiences that showcase enhanced product offerings. These platforms bridge the gap between airline-specific NDC implementations and booking tools that need consistent data formats.

Delta NDC content flows through specialized aggregators that can process the airline’s dynamic pricing and ancillary offerings alongside traditional fare structures. This approach allows Delta to leverage advanced distribution capabilities while ensuring its content reaches travel sellers who haven’t yet implemented direct NDC connections.

NDC with direct airline connections

Direct NDC connections enable airlines to maintain complete control over their product presentation and customer interaction while bypassing intermediary markup and data limitations. This model supports the most sophisticated personalization and dynamic pricing strategies.

Airline NDC direct connections let carriers deliver personalized NDC airfare offers based on customer loyalty status, booking history, and real-time demand patterns. Airlines can adjust pricing, bundle ancillaries, and present targeted promotions without relying on third-party interpretation of their content, creating truly differentiated shopping experiences.

Integrating bidding with NDC: Enhanced procurement strategies

Airline bidding is a procurement approach where corporations submit detailed travel requirements to multiple carriers, requesting customized proposals that address route needs, volume commitments, and service expectations. Unlike traditional fare negotiations that focus primarily on discounts, modern airline bidding encompasses comprehensive travel packages that include ancillary services, flexible booking policies, and traveler experience enhancements.

Through NDC corporate travel integration, this bidding process gains sophisticated data capabilities. Corporate travel apps can now transmit detailed passenger preferences, historical booking patterns, and policy requirements directly to airlines, enabling carriers to craft highly targeted proposals that balance cost efficiency with traveler satisfaction requirements.

Types of airline bidding

Bidding for travel spans several distinct approaches, each designed to optimize different aspects of the corporate travel experience while leveraging competitive marketplace dynamics. These bidding mechanisms have evolved significantly with NDC capabilities, enabling more granular and responsive pricing strategies that benefit both airlines and corporate buyers.

• Dynamic seat pricing uses real-time bidding algorithms to adjust seat selection fees based on demand, route popularity, and passenger booking patterns. This approach integrates seamlessly with passenger service system data to optimize pricing across different cabin classes and seat types, ensuring airlines maximize revenue while offering competitive options to price-sensitive corporate travelers.
• Upgrade auctions allow passengers to bid for premium cabin seats or enhanced services after completing their initial booking through standard NDC booking channels. Airlines can offer these upgrade opportunities based on availability and passenger willingness to pay, creating additional revenue streams while providing travelers with cost-controlled access to premium experiences.
• Fare bidding enables corporations to submit volume commitments and route requirements to multiple airlines, receiving customized fare proposals that reflect their specific travel patterns and policy needs. Airlines can leverage their NDC capabilities to create tailored pricing structures that account for ancillary services, booking flexibility, and traveler preferences within comprehensive bid responses.

These bidding mechanisms work most effectively when supported by a robust NDC airline infrastructure. The enhanced connectivity and personalization capabilities create the foundation for more sophisticated bidding strategies.

How NDC ensures bidding personalization and upselling

NDC enables direct airline-booking platform data exchange, bypassing legacy constraints. This allows real-time access to pricing and inventory, powering dynamic offers and competitive bidding.

• Direct content access and real-time updates allow airlines to bypass traditional GDS constraints and deliver their full product portfolio directly to NDC for travel agents and corporate booking platforms. This ensures that bidding runs on current information, enabling more accurate and competitive proposals.
• Enhanced offer creation enables airlines to craft personalized proposals that combine flights with ancillary services tailored to specific requirements. NDC travel management systems can process these offers and present them within bidding workflows, allowing companies to evaluate comprehensive travel packages.
• Dynamic pricing integration allows airlines to implement real-time pricing adjustments based on demand patterns, booking timing, and customer behavior data. This capability supports bidding scenarios where airline API integration enables automated price optimization and competitive responses, ensuring that corporate buyers receive current market pricing rather than outdated fare information.
• Streamlined upselling opportunities, as airlines offer personalized upgrades and ancillaries based on traveler data. These options integrate into bidding, letting corporates compare premium and standard fares.

The integration of airlines NDC creates a more responsive and competitive marketplace. However, NDC-driven bidding optimizes airline operations: real-time demand matching cuts waste and boosts efficiency, benefiting both profitability and sustainability.

NDC, AI, and sustainable seat allocation

Legacy revenue management depends on overbooking, causing either denied boardings or wasted seats. NDC API integration enables airlines to implement more precise demand forecasting by analyzing real-time booking patterns, passenger behavior data, and market conditions, allowing carriers to optimize seat allocation.

The NDC airlines list continues expanding as carriers recognize how dynamic pricing capabilities can better match capacity with actual demand. For instance, United Airlines’ NDC partnership with Reed & Mackay empowers corporate travelers with real-time fare visibility, personalized pricing, and seamless booking integration while keeping overbooking and pricing parity at check.

When airlines understand the true NDC airline meaning, they can create pricing strategies that fill flights more efficiently while reducing the environmental impact of operating half-empty aircraft or managing complex rebooking scenarios from oversold flights.

Emissions transparency with NDC integration

NDC travel industry implementations now include detailed environmental data within flight offers, enabling corporate travel managers to evaluate carbon emissions alongside pricing during bidding processes. Airlines can embed specific emissions calculations for individual flights, aircraft types, and routing options directly into their NDC travel offers, allowing companies to make informed decisions that balance cost considerations with sustainability goals when evaluating competitive bids from multiple carriers.

An example of a carbon calculator for airlines — Photo by COAX

The integration of AI in aviation systems with New Distribution Capability platforms enables real-time emissions tracking and comparison across different flight options, route alternatives, and airline operational practices. Corporate platforms now get bids with pricing and emissions data, letting travel managers balance cost savings with sustainability goals.

Bidding & NDC for seat inventory optimization

What is New Distribution Capability when viewed through the lens of inventory optimization? Unlike traditional systems treating seats as uniform, NDC allows flexible, personalized product offerings based on real-time market and customer data. NDC solutions give airlines firm corporate booking data, improving fleet deployment and scheduling efficiency. This minimizes half-empty flights while meeting confirmed demand.

NDC bidding transforms this further by enabling demand-driven optimization without overbooking. Direct airline-booking platform connections let carriers track reservations, cancellations, and adjust inventory in real time. The bidding system fosters competition, helping airlines find optimal pricing while maximizing capacity. NDC travel agency platforms with bidding improve demand forecasting by using live market signals, not just historical data, enabling real-time inventory adjustments.

The outcome of this technology mix is more precise operations, lower environmental impact, and better customer satisfaction through optimized capacity and reliable service.

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