APEX EXPO 2016 Education Day: Industry Innovations
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APEX Insight: Education Day’s Track D sessions provided audience members with insight into two major industry innovations. The first, IATA’s NDC, will provide passengers with a more transparent retail experience. The second, FTE’s “Onboard Connectivity 2025 Think Tank”, explores how airlines can harness the possibilities provided by advances in the connectivity landscape.
IATA’s New Distribution Capability to Improve Airline Retail
In the ever-growing, multifaceted digital retail landscape, IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) data standard promises to “level the playing field” between airlines and travel service providers, giving hopeful travelers a comprehensive listing of airfares and ancillary services, regardless of platform.
The aim of NDC is to allow airlines to retail their entire product portfolio in a consistent manner across all channels, with the capability to bring new products to the market more efficiently, and boost ancillary revenues. For consumers, a more transparent retail experience and the ability to price-compare across airline offerings will make shopping more convenient.
“One of the strengths of NDC is that it’s a standard that’s very robust,” says Marius Dogeanu, NDC implementation manager, IATA. Twenty-seven major airlines are now NDC-certified, and an additional 86 airlines plan to adopt the standard. Most recently, Finnair announced at last week’s IATA World Passenger Symposium its plans to go live with Skyscanner in early 2017.
In the week preceding IATA’s conference, more than 100 developers worked for 28 hours straight at an NDC Hackathon event, where using IATA’s NDC API, they created business travel features and apps.
Dogeanu also introduced IATA’s NDC-related “One Order” initiative, with the goal to replace the current multiple and rigid booking, ticketing, delivery and accounting processes with a single referenced passenger travel document.
Future Travel Experience’s Onboard Connectivity 2025 Think Tank
The year 2025 is less than a decade away, and Future Travel Experience’s (FTE) Onboard Connectivity Think Tank shared its gaze into the crystal ball. Based on consultation with industry leaders, the report predicts that 80 percent of all aircraft will be connectivity-enabled by 2025, and all new aircraft will be delivered with connectivity already installed.
Connection speeds of 100 Mbps will be the norm, and the cost of moving data will drop incrementally from current rates. “We need to carefully plan and strategize how we collect and share our data,” said Dante Dionne, senior IT manager, Innovation Technology Development Center, Korean Air. New operational, crew empowerment, and passenger personalization opportunities may all be developed as airlines access the potential of the connected aircraft and big data.
To take advantage of this new world of connectivity, the report recommends that a central, shared repository of the huge volumes of operational data would benefit the industry. Another recommendation is for airlines and suppliers to work together to develop a personalization super-app, which will be the cornerstone for an enhanced passenger experience.
“Airlines are looking at their customer base as something that can’t be shared. But we as an industry need to look at the passenger experience from an end-to-end perspective,” added Joe Leader, CEO APEX.