FCM Travel Solutions and parent company Flight Centre Travel Group have become the first global TMC to achieve NDC Level 4 certification by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Currently the highest level of IATA’s NDC certification programme, Level 4 NDC certification confirms that FCM can provide ‘Full Offer and Order Management’. This means in addition to booking NDC airline content, the company’s travel consultants can also support changes in travellers NDC bookings and flight disruption, which FCM said were “key elements of servicing clients in the corporate sector”.
Jason Toothman, executive general manager – global air distribution for Flight Centre Travel Group, said in a statement: “This is another significant milestone on our NDC roadmap. We have been able to search and book NDC content with selected partner airlines via our preferred technology aggregators in each of the markets where FCM operates for several months.
“However, the ongoing issue around implementing NDC has been the ability to handle bookings which have been disrupted – this applies not only to FCM, but any other TMC or agency capable of making live NDC bookings. Disruption handling is a key element of corporate travel management and is often time critical; receiving a disruption notification, assessing the suitability or proposed alternates and actioning subsequent changes.”
Nicola Ping, FCM’s manager air content & distribution EMEA, added: “There is still work to be done industry-wide to ensure that NDC standards are completely business travel ready… The industry ecosystem needs to continue to work together to ensure progress, especially in the corporate environment.”
Although several airlines such as United Airlines, American Airlines and Lufthansa have also achieved Level 4 status, to date no other global TMC has reached this level of NDC capability.
