Driving Consistency in NDC Servicing

In a recent session with the Business Travel Innovation Group (BIG) — our innovation community of 21 corporate buyers— one message came through loud and clear:

Agencies and buyers want clearer, more consistent servicing behaviors across airlines.

Today, travelers and TMCs still face a patchwork of processes when it comes to exchanges, refunds, and disruption handling in NDC. This lack of predictability adds cost, slows down servicing, and can hold back adoption in the managed travel space.

Why servicing matters so much

NDC’s promise has always been richer content, more personalized offers, and better retailing. But without reliable servicing, these benefits stall at the first disruption. A corporate traveler who can’t easily exchange a ticket, refund a flight, or change an ancillary service creates downstream pain for TMCs and travel managers. Buyers told us this directly: while shop, book, and pay have improved dramatically, exchange and post-ticket servicing remain unpredictable and resource-intensive for the most part.

What we’re doing at Accelya

At Accelya, we’re taking action where we can have the most impact:

1. Aligning our airline partners to IATA NDC schema 24.1 — reducing fragmentation and introducing more consistent servicing across carriers.
   
2. Standardizing servicing flows for the airlines we power, so agencies know what to expect when they work with our 50+ carrier partners.
   
3. Listening and iterating: Through our BIG forums and NDC FastTrack program, we collect direct buyer and TMC feedback to prioritize the fixes that matter most.

While this won’t solve the industry challenge universally, it will bring meaningful consistency to the airlines that represent 53% of all NDC transactions worldwide. For TMCs and corporate buyers, that means fewer surprises, more predictable workflows, and a faster path to making NDC work at scale.

Partnering with the industry to go further

We know this can’t be done in isolation. BIG participants — including leading buyers from corporations with a combined travel spend in excess of $2 billion — are now working together on a template to help buyers assess NDC functionality. This tool will help buyers clearly see which NDC servicing features their agencies and technology partners support, shining a light on gaps and helping everyone prioritize what to build next.

“I see an opportunity here for the group to do something monumental for the industry.” — Corporate buyer, BIG community (on the NDC template)

We believe efforts like this, combined with our work on IATA 24.1 alignment, can provide a strong blueprint for scaling NDC in managed travel — not just with our airline partners but across the wider ecosystem.

Our commitment

Our approach is simple: listen, align, and act. By translating the real-world needs of corporate buyers and agencies into practical improvements, we’re helping move the industry toward a modern retailing future where offer creation and order servicing are as smooth as shopping.

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