On Wednesday, Qantas unveiled a major update to how travel agents will access fares, with a new distribution model to launch in mid-2025. Qantas says the rollout of the New Distribution Capability (NDC) will bring significant benefits for agents and consumers alike. But some travel advisors aren’t convinced.
After Karryon broke the news yesterday, many agents expressed their disappointment on social media. Here’s a snapshot of what they said on Karryon’s Facebook page:
- “I would love to support our national carrier however the hoops I need to jump through when THEY change something is time needed elsewhere.”
- “I have spent collectively over 6 hours the past week (4 hours of that was on hold) trying to get a reasonable fare assessment for a NDC booking reissue through QIC. Their staff don’t even know how NDC works!”
- “How we can further screw agents is a better title.., that NDC is crap! At least what [Travelport] offers is insanely pre-historic. Nothing beats a GDS for PNR creation.”
- “Hopefully with these changes they will also have additional support. Even calling QAC for NDC help still takes hours”
- “Spoke to 4 travel agents who said they no longer book Qantas. Sell other airlines.”
- “Saying things like ‘access to better fares’ like, didn’t we already have access to most of them already?”
- “The most user-unfriendly system ever. Thank goodness I have retired after many decades in the industry….”
- “BRING BACK COMMISSION AND I MIGHT CONSIDER IT”
- “Only ever benefits the airline not the agent”
- “Qantas”… Care factor… oh look it doesn’t exist”
- “Who cares, I won’t sell them any more. Moving along…”
- “Not interested in the slightest”
- “1 question: Why?”
Qantas confident
So why is the flying kangaroo so confident it can win over the many travel advisors pushing back on NDC?
It’s largely due to its long consultations with the travel agency sector and other stakeholders.
“We’ve been talking about this for many, many years, and certainly in the last three to six months, we’ve had some really deep structural engagement about the way that we should launch this,” Qantas International CEO Cameron Wallace said in a media call on the day of the announcement.
“And the feedback we’ve got is: give us options and give us time. And those are the two key considerations we’ve taken.
“So we have consulted with ATIA. We’ve consulted with, obviously, the states and territories, and in the travel agency groups, the heads of them. But also, importantly for us, some of the front liners who have the day-to-day job of facilitating the travel on behalf of their customers.
“Clearly, we’ve also talked to our corporate customers as well, so we’ve been doing a lot of deep consultation.”
According to Wallace, it’s also down to the ample lead time for the new technology.
“Our team spent a tremendous amount of time collaborating with our travel agency partners, taking feedback from them on how fast or otherwise we should go,” he stated.
“So I think the speed that we go to the market has been determined by our collaboration with the trade. So we’ve purposely given a very long lead time.
“This NDC journey has been going for over five years, but… we think that’s an appropriate time for travel agencies to understand where they best want to access content – and what we’ve done is give choice and options for our travel agency partners.”
During the conference call, Wallace said that the rollout of the new model would give the trade “enough time to transfer their business models to move to this new technology solution”.
“So we know this has been a big change for travel agents, not only locally, but globally,” he said.
“So we’ve spent a considerable amount of time talking through the changes, the rationale that supports the technology, and ultimately giving a lot of flexibility in the new model, so they can find different ways to one, access the content, but also to develop their business model.”
“Encouraging” feedback
Wallace said that as the technology becomes ubiquitous, so too does the acceptance – or even embrace – of it.
“So in the feedback we’ve had directly from our significant trade partners, it’s been more positive than we would have previously anticipated. And I suppose that’s because the technology is becoming widespread across the industry,” he said, calling the feedback “encouraging”.
Wallace also flagged the “significant opportunity for agents to earn dynamic commission, [streamline] manual processes and just [make] the process easier and better”.
“These will importantly include surcharge free options, as well as options that include varying ticket surcharges. So there’ll be a range of different options, from EDIFACT, which is the traditional system, through NDC standard and NDC premium.”
“And we’ve been working with our GDS partners and certified travel technology partners to set up a model for flexibility success.”
But Wallace says the biggest benefit from the transition from other booking channels to NDC will simply be the overall “modernisation of the travel booking process”.
“GDSs are investing heavily in the NDC. Airlines like Qantas, we’re investing heavily in the NDC – and this is the platform for the future,” he says.
“It’s going to provide more options for agents to access more content, better fares, dynamic commissions, better recognition and personalisation… also when things go wrong, over time, there’ll be more and better disruption handling.”
Skroo’s take
And one of Australia’s biggest travel industry figures – a man who knows a thing or two about the business – is also behind the move.
“NDC is the future for our industry,” Flight Centre Travel Group CEO Graham Turner said.
“This technology will bring additional benefits to our customers including enhanced capability, access to richer content and greater personalisation.
“We are empowering our agents to be equipped to provide our customers with access to the widest range of products, fares and airline services via NDC.
“FCTG works closely with our GDS partners and have invested in our own aggregation specialist, TPConnects to support the scalable rollout of NDC.
“We look forward to working closely with Qantas to help deliver these benefits and as part of our objective of securing access to the widest range of product for our people and customers.”
