At least three travel organizations are opposing or expressing concerns about IATA’s Resolution 787, whose central component is the proposed New Distribution Capability (NDC), but at least one travel agency supports it.
IATA has filed Resolution 787 with the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has already extended the comment period for the resolution by a month, until May 1.
The Global Business Travel Association is asking the DOT not to approve Resolution 787 because “not enough clarity is available” at this time.
The World Travel Agents Associations Alliance said it has three main concerns about NDC.
“NDC appears to eliminate or reduce consumers’ ability to carry out neutral comparison shopping, which currently promotes competition of airfares between carriers,” said Lars Thykier, WTAAA chairman. Thykier said that NDC “appears to impose huge costs directly on to travel agencies, and indirectly to their customers” because travel agencies would have to redesign their systems to accommodate NDC.
Finally, the WTAAA said that NDC appears to require consumers to provide personal data before they can find out the cost of an airline ticket, and that raises data privacy concerns.
The Association of Canadian Travel Agencies has asked Canada’s Competition Bureau to investigate Resolution 787, and is encouraging members to file comments with the DOT. ACTA says that NDC would “negatively and significantly impact travel industry costs and airline competition and would drive up airline prices for consumers. “
In background materials, ACTA said that the current distribution model is “market driven,” while NDC would create a distribution system created by IATA.
“IATA and a small number of large airlines have worked on this project rather confidentially for one year and have determined all the main principles of the model,” ACTA said.
One travel agency, Short’s Travel Management, urged the DOT to approve Resolution 787 in a comment written by CEO David LeCompte.
Short’s — an agency with headquarters in Waterloo, Iowa and Overland Park, Kan. — said that Resolution 787 will “allow travel agencies the ability to offer the type of enhanced shopping environment currently available only on airline direct websites.”
LeCompte pointed to IATA’s own statements in which it promised to continue to support anonymous travel requests and enable airline website capabilities for indirect channels, and that both distribution models will live side-by-side for some considerable time.
Addressing privacy concerns, Short’s filing noted that IATA has said that personal data will only be in fields, and that no data is mandatory under Resolution 787.
Short’s said that Resolution 787 will allow for greater innovation for travel agencies, and means agencies can produce e-tickets rather than having the passenger take the extra step of going through the airline website, an airline app, an airline kiosk or an airline representative to get their tickets.
Follow Kate Rice on Twitter @krtravelweekly.