Questions and Answers

Transcription

1 uestions and nswers uestions and answers on British irways NDC 1

2 On October 25th 2016, we hosted an irline NDC forum, the first in the travel industry attended by 200 travel professionals from across the industry, representing corporate customers, travel partners, NDC Service Providers and GDSs. The event was organised as part of our commitment to drive awareness and create a platform for discussion on NDC. The day attracted a variety of questions from attendees, most of which were answered on the day. This document captures all questions captured on the day that we are able to answer from a legal or contractual perspective. If you would like further information please contact your ccount Manager or selling.distribution@ba.com. For bookings made via Skyscanner how are changes/ cancellations facilitated? nd can usage of vios points be supported? Bookings made via Skyscanner can be serviced on ba.com or by the B call centre. Currently, British irways NDC supports payment by customer/corporate card and BSP. Payment with vios is not yet available but is part of our future NDC development. If a customer services their booking on ba.com post-booking, then they are able to pay using vios. Does NDC allow Skyscanner access to inventory at point of origin, rather than point of sale? NDC allows access to pricing & inventory at point of origin and currency at point of sale. re there plans for NDC standards on involuntary change handling and disruption notifications? Plans are in place for the introduction of a NotifPI which would allow for efficient handling of disruption via notification. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 2

3 How will airlines use the information that they receive via NDC when a request is made but a booking is not made? Whilst remaining in compliance of customer consent and data regulations, NDC is a great way for British irways to know more about its customers and what they want so that we can continue to improve the service we offer them. By having more information about what our customers are looking for, we will be able to improve and tailor our offering over time to suit customer needs. However NDC remains fully compliant in regards to customer consent and data regulations. What kind of graphical and descriptive content is British irways providing through NDC? British irways NDC has the potential to display rich content and product descriptions and this is something that will be developed over time. Yanik Hoyles spoke of ba.com serving the customer an offer. re British irways using the same XML as NDC? re NDC and ba.com capable of serving up a corporate or net fare? If one chooses to pay for a British irways offer via BSP, do we waive the guarantee of no DMs? B.com and NDC use many of the same services to source their information. NDC is capable of returning both corporate and leisure fares. Whatever deal a corporate or agent has with British irways will be available via NDC and these bookings will count towards their targets. British irways are working with Triplink to enable corporates to track more easily, when booked through ba.com. British irways are IT Level 3 Certified and do use the same XML as the NDC standard. NDC has a no fare-related DMs guarantee, regardless of form of payment. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 3

4 The search volumes which airlines will experience will surely be significantly greater through NDC. Is there a risk that there will not be enough capacity for search. How is this risk being managed in NDC? British irways is regularly reviewing the capacity of our NDC servers to ensure that it is more than capable of dealing with the amount of requests that will come through it. How do I advertise a from price on my website if my offer is personalised via NDC? Can In NDC, there is no change as to what you are currently able to advertise. Will NDC allow me to book with miles? Currently, NDC allows payment by customer/corporate card and BSP (for those agents with BSP authority). Payment with vios is not currently available. gents book a drop fare using NDC? Leisure fares and corporate fares are now available via NDC. We manage way more than just airline tickets. How does NDC feed into that whole booking experience? The NDC PIs can be integrated into your current booking platform so that, from a front-end perspective, there is little change. You can also create customer orders with the flight as a part of it. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 4

5 What does British irways see as the function of the TMC going forward? The function of the TMC will continue to be determined by the wishes of the corporates they work with. TMCs offer services to corporates that are as valuable now as they were before NDC, such as duty of care and support in adherence to corporate travel policy. Our PIs are available for any TMC to connect. It was mentioned that NDC only supports shopping. re there plans for standards to push or fetch fare offer content for retailers to promote to consumers? How There are currently no plans to do this in the short term. will NDC work with multi-airline itineraries? ny itinerary that you would be able to book on ba.com will also be available to book via NDC, including itineraries with flights operated by other carriers. Currently, British irways NDC allows you to book ancillaries on British irways operated flights and this will be extended to other carrier operated flights in the future. It is not currently possible to manually build a multi-carrier itinerary in NDC. For a mixed airline itinerary which carrier processes the non-validating carrier s EMD through BSP/RC? t present, NDC Capability is only able to issue British irways-owned documents on 125 stock, where the validating carrier has to be British irways. If a change happens on an interline itinerary where the ticket is a British irways 125 ticket, the remittance of any associated EMDs will be carried out by British irways on 125 stock and British irways will take care of reporting the transaction to BSP/RC. There is no option at this stage to process a non-british irways document through BSP/RC. However interline EMDs may enable this in the future. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 5

6 Can I still manually build an itinerary? NDC interline may enable this in the future however currently this is unavailable. With an NDC booking, if the client makes a change directly with a carrier is this change pushed back to the agent? The agent will be able to see the latest status of a booking, and British irways will notify the agent of any change to a booking that impacts the itinerary, ticket or ancillary products. If the customer attempts to service their booking through normal airline servicing operations (e.g. personal preferences, Executive Club referencing, ancillary sale), the agent will be notified. If the customer attempts to service a booking outside of airline servicing (e.g. change of itinerary, or upgrade) then the transaction will not be available to the passenger and they will be redirected to their agent. Please note that during the operational window (24 hours before first flight), the passenger is able to carry out changes on their itinerary due to the short-term nature of the change. Why would a new standard be aligned to XML and not a more modern PI standard like JSON? XML is the standard selected by IT for NDC and as such has been implemented by all airlines under that standard. If IT migrate the NDC standard to reflect JSON or future languages, British irways will review the opportunities and migrate when convenient. What happened to the standard it seems quite obvious that there are several versions of NDC? There is only one standard for NDC, but all airlines are adopting this at a different pace and might not be on the same version of the agreed standard at this point in time. British irways is aiming to always meet the minimum version required by IT for Level 3 certification. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 6

7 When Where do British irways see OneOrder coming into fruition? IT have launched OneOrder pilots in 2017, and there should be a proof of concept by the end of the year. are the self booking tools with NDC adoption? British irways PIs are available for any of the self-booking tools to connect and several are already testing. What determines what level of NDC you are? What does that mean? The purpose of the NDC Certification Programme is to confirm the scope and level of a particular entity s capability to send and receive NDC messages. The Programme validates that the structure of the pplicant s NDC messages accurately follows the relevant version of the applicable NDC schemas. There are 3 levels of certification (1-3) and the level awarded is determined by the entity s capability. For full details on what capability and schemas are required for each level - please visit Which intermediaries are using the British irways current live PI? For information on live intermediaries please visit What degree of booking servicing is possible with NDC capability? NDC currently allows itinerary changes, upgrades and ancillary servicing. Cancel and Refund is also available. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 7

8 Regarding rich content - did you plan to have something adapted for the mobile customer? nd the ability to facilitate booking for this customer? NDC is an XML coding language which means it can be developed for mobile applications for the modern day customer. developer can present it in a responsive way so it adapts to the device it is being used on. In the NDC future, will forward bookings be possible more than the current year in advance? There are currently no plans for this to change in the immediate future. If NDC has a bigger pipe and shows more options to the traveller, how does this translate into greater policy control? Does NDC offer policy control or does this require a change from Self Booking Tools that currently provide these tools? NDC offers a feed of British irways data that can be integrated with self-booking tools. Corporates will need to inform their self-booking tools if content and display requirements change from existing methods. Will air segments booked through an NDC direct connect be passed back as passive segments into the GDS so the TMC is aware of the booking? NDC bookings will only be available through the NDC connection that was used to make the booking. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 8

9 I want to book a British irways flight on NDC, an merican irlines flight on a separate ticket within the same PNR as well as a hotel. How do I present this to the customer with my own branding without B sending any of their own documentation to the customer? It is not currently possible to have British irways and other suppliers on one PNR using NDC. OneOrder may enable this in the future. Will NDC also be used for airport/check-in facilities? E.g. R codes for boarding passes Check-in is not available via NDC at this stage. If NDC is going to be able to show all your content, are you going to change the way you distribute it? Content is made available through multiple channels. The agent can choose which way they want to access British irways information. s and when British irways develops new content, it may be PI specific. n example of PI only content is ancillaries. If British irways own NDC bookings, what implications does this have for TMC s wanting to utilise data related to those bookings? TMCs will have access to all bookings via NDC. But unlike today, British irways will issue the ticket and not the agents. TMCs still own the relationship and will be able to access all of the data on all related bookings. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 9

10 Does it have to be online? What about my call centre, can they still do all this? No it doesn t have to all be online. The NDC PI s can be used by any front end. It doesn t matter whether this is customer or call centre facing. The NDC bookings can be serviced through the same method as the original booking and the full booking information is retained through the travel agent. If a customer books through an agent/ot and British irways issue documentation, what controls do we have on branding? How will this impact the customer experience? ll agents connecting will need to agree to our contracts, Terms and Conditions and the Travel ddendum which cover branding guidelines for agents. We send regular updates when new capability is released, including any changes to brand names or products. Will there be an PI to access all the ticketing information so we can create our own branded tickets etc? OrderRetrieve retrieves ticketing information which does enable the agent the ability to place branding on certain aspects of e-tickets but the airline still owns the ticket and the branding of the ticket. We hear a lot from your distribution teams about NDC, but what if I want to ask my account manager, do they understand what it means for me? British irways account managers have been trained on NDC and have the knowledge to answer any questions you may have. development Why is British irways not approaching the NDC together with its Joint Venture partners? British irways is working closely with its joint business partners to ensure consistency where appropriate and possible. uestions and answers on British irways NDC 10