Episode 2 of the series “My NDC is better than yours”
In the first episode, we saw how to distinguish a good NDC from a bad one. Today, we're taking it a step further. We're leaving the meeting room to sit next to the travel agent. And we're looking at what really changes on their screen, in their day-to-day operations, and in their profit margins.
Spoiler alert: NDC, when implemented correctly, is a serious opportunity. When implemented incorrectly, it's a source of daily friction that wears down teams and erodes profitability.
➡️ Discover episode 1 of our series “My NDC is better than yours” and delve into the real stakes of the NDC battle between companies, GDS and distributors.
Summary
What the agent earns (when things go well)
1. Content that he simply didn't have before
The first benefit is access. Not technical access, but real, operational, useful access.
With a good NDC aggregator, agents can see offers that don't exist in the GDS: promotions, exclusive fares, branded fares , and bundles that the airline reserves for its direct distribution. Air France , Lufthansa , and British Airways all have NDC content that isn't found in the EDIFACT section of the GDS.
In practical terms: a customer requests a business class flight from Paris to Toronto. The agent searches. The GDS returns an offer at €3,200. The NDC returns another, same airline, same flight, at €2,650, with an extra bag included. Which one is it offering? The answer is obvious. And the customer comes back.
This scenario isn't theoretical. It happens every day in agencies with a working NDC aggregator. The real question isn't "Does the NDC have additional content?"—it does. The question is: "Is my tool reporting it to me, in production, today?"
2. The margin that was no longer visible
GDS commissions have plummeted. That's a fact, not an opinion. NDC opens up another mechanism: incentives offered by airlines to agencies that book through their NDC channels, ancillary services (luggage, seats, meals, lounge access) on which the agency can apply its own service fees, and sometimes more favorable pricing than those available through GDS.
It's not an overnight revolution. But with a volume of 500 or 1,000 bookings per year, the differences start to show on the bottom line. And in a market where margins are measured in percentage points, each ancillary item sold through NDC—a preferred seat at €35, a checked bag at €25—can represent an additional net profit for the agency.
The goal is not to become an ancillary store. It's to no longer leave that value on the table in favor of the company's direct website.
3. After-sales finally manageable
This is often the point overlooked in sales demos. And yet, this is where it hurts the most on a daily basis.
A good NDC tool should allow: exchanges and refunds without going through the company's call center, name changes before and after issuance, adding a loyalty card after booking, modifying APIs, and adding post-issuance services. All of this from the agency's interface, without picking up the phone or waiting 45 minutes listening to elevator music.
When possible, the agent saves 20 to 30 minutes per complex case. In a 10-person agency handling 30 cases with modifications per week, this translates to 100 to 150 hours freed up each month . Time that can be devoted to sales, advising, and building customer loyalty.
When it isn't, because the tool only implements booking and not after-sales service, or because there's an API bug, it's exactly the opposite: NDC creates extra work, not value. The agent books using NDC, then has to call the airline for any changes. The result: two parallel workflows, errors, and teams that end up bypassing the NDC tool and going back to the GDS.
4. Price transparency finally becomes a reality
An underestimated advantage of NDC is the readability of fare conditions. GDSs have long displayed fare rules written in capital letters in a format inherited from the 80s. NDC, on the other hand, forces companies to structure their offers in a readable way: exchange, refund, and name change conditions are clearly displayed at the time of the search.
For the agent, it saves time during the booking process. For the customer, it means a better understanding of what they are buying. And for the agency, it means fewer disputes, fewer misunderstandings, and fewer phone calls on the day of booking because the customer hadn't realized they were buying a non-refundable ticket.
What remains difficult (let's be honest)
The learning curve is real
An agent who has spent 15 years using Amadeus develops certain habits. NDC disrupts some of these habits. Offer formats are different. Pricing conditions are presented differently. NDC pricing rules are not always the same as those of the GDS for the same airline, the same flight, and the same day.
Issuing errors have costly consequences. A ticket wrongly issued at a non-exchangeable (NDC) fare can potentially cost several hundred euros.
Allow between two and four weeks for an experienced agent to become truly comfortable with a good NDC tool. And plan for support: not just a one-hour training session, but genuine follow-up during the first month. Vendors who provide access and PDF documentation as training are setting their clients up for failure. Ongoing support and guidance from the vendor are the cornerstone of success for agents to master this change.
The mixed file: the real headache
A flight with NDC + a hotel with bed bank + an SNCF train ticket + insurance. Welcome to the reality of 80% of bookings.
The hybrid booking system is the ultimate test of your tool. Does it manage everything within the same interface? Does it automatically consolidate traveler data? Does it produce a consistent travel document without the agent having to juggle three different systems?
Most tools on the market respond: “Under development.” The best ones already do. The difference is immediately visible in productivity and team morale.
Outages and timeouts
NDC is real-time. It's API-to-API. When it works well, it's seamless. When it's slow because the company has an API issue or the provider is experiencing a surge in traffic, the agent waits. And in an agency, waiting costs money.
A good contractual SLA doesn't prevent outages. It just guarantees that you'll be compensated afterward. That's not quite the same thing.
The real difference between a good and a bad aggregator: It's the monitoring of API failures, and the level of its support to help the agency evolve, not just respond, go do it on EDIFACT (the GDS).
The typical case study: before and after NDC
To make things concrete, here is what a Paris-Dubai business class booking looks like for a corporate client, before and after a well-done NDC deployment.
Before (GDS only): The agent initiates their search. They see the offers available in the GDS. They select, issue, and send the confirmation.
After (full-stack NDC aggregator): The agent launches their search. They see both GDS and NDC offers, deduplicated and compared (this is an option offered by some aggregators). They identify an Emirates NDC offer €180 cheaper, with an immediately selectable seat. They issue the booking. They add the frequent flyer card from the interface. Three weeks later, the customer wants to move their flight forward: the agent handles the exchange directly, without calling Emirates.
Result: €180 saved for the customer, one ancillary service sold (seat upgrade), and 25 minutes saved on after-sales service. Multiply by 40 Emirates bookings per month.
The real indicator: the agent's NPS (Number of Satisfaction Score), not the customer's
In all discussions about NDC, the focus is on customer experience. Agent experience is rarely mentioned.
That's a mistake. If the agent doesn't like the tool, if they find workarounds, if they find it slow or complicated, they'll go back to what they know: the GDS, the old interface, the direct phone call to the company. And all the agency's technological investment will be for nothing.
The real question to ask after three months of deployment isn't "Are our customers satisfied?" It's: "Would our agents recommend this tool to a colleague?"
If the answer is no, you have a fundamental problem. Not a training problem. A tool problem, or an implementation problem. And both of these problems have the same solution: review the specifications from the beginning, using the right questions, those from episode 1.
Key takeaways
Operational NDC is not a PowerPoint presentation. It's 50 cases per week, clients calling back to make changes, colleagues finding the right price in less than 3 clicks, and a manager checking their margins at the end of the month.
The agencies that truly benefit from it have one thing in common: they've chosen a tool that goes all the way—content, after-sales, mixed-media projects, performance. Not a tool that ticks the "NDC compatible" box and stops there.
NDC is not an additional burden for teams. It's a marketing tool. Provided you have the right one.
➡️ Read more about NDC in tourism
"My NDC is better than yours": The airlines' battle over NDC
NDC: What this changes in concrete terms for tourism professionals
Qantas and Navan: an NDC alliance that redefines business travel
