Flybe in pioneering NDC implementation

Flybe has become the first airline in the world to successfully implement the New Distribution Capability (NDC) standard to the entire value chain of business travel industry stakeholders. This enables Flybe to provide easy access of its corporate fares to corporate buyers.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) provides the only official industry certification programme in support of the NDC standard, and Flybe was one of the first carriers to achieve ‘NDC Certification Level 3’. This is the highest level of certification under the NDC Certification Programme. The status recognises that Flybe uses ‘Offer and Order’ management messages whose schemas are compliant with the standard NDC message schema. It was awarded in the context of an NDC deployment in cooperation with Flybe’s host system provider Hewlett Packard Enterprise in conjunction with Travelfusion, KDS, HRG and PwC.

Christine Ourmieres-Widener, Flybe’s CEO, commented: “We are proud to once again become an industry-leader by being the first airline in the world to enable this new improved booking system. Our IATA NDC certification is yet another exciting development for Flybe and I applaud everyone who has worked so hard to make this a reality. It is a great move forward and will in future make it so much easier for more of our corporate customers to benefit from having access to our best possible fares and many have already expressed significant interest in working with us on this latest development. We look forward to its full roll-out and implementation in upcoming months.”

Yanik Hoyles, director of the NDC Program at IATA stated: “We welcome the decision by Flybe to become available to corporates through the implementation of the NDC standard. NDC facilitates the introduction of ancillary services to managed channels and it enables rich content and personalisation, key features when applying corporate policies for individuals or groups.”