Dubai, United Arab Emirates: British Airways has extended its New Distribution Capability (NDC) with TPConnects, one of the first International Air Transport Association (IATA) Certified Travel Aggregators and IT Providers.
The NDC Standard enhances the capability of communications between airlines and travel agents and brings lower cost, innovation, ease of comparison and interoperability. With NDC, the 69,500 plus IATA accredited Travel Agencies across the world who contribute almost 53% of the world airline revenue yearly, will be enabled to view and sell airline products that are typically only available on airline websites today including personalized shopping, fare family products and rich media. This is not usually possible today owing to limitations in the current technical standard used for airline-agent data communications.
TPConnects, working with British Airways as an NDC service provider, has integrated directly to the airline’s NDC APIs with a b2b reseller platform and Internet Booking Engine for Online Travel Agencies.
British Airways NDC has been associated with numerous benefits to the entire travel agency community and end consumers including corporates. Travel Agents using the TPConnects Travel Aggregator Platform or the Internet booking engine will be able to access the airlines’ offerings directly including ancillary products and perform after sales service like refund, change of date and flight etc. Moreover, travel agents will have the ability to offer personalized products benefitting the end consumers. With this direct connect integration travel agents will be able to access rich content that includes videos, pictures and personalized preferences both in the b2b and online channel that presently portrays only commoditized data such as schedules and fares with no explanation regarding the product.
Rajendran Vellapalath, TPConnects’ Chief Executive Officer said “As the first NDC Level 3 Certified Travel Aggregator, TPConnects is proud to connect directly to British Airways NDC. This direct connection increases the value proposition of the travel agent channel, by enabling travel agents globally to have access to the same rich content and targeted offerings available on BA.com and allows the travel agents to change the manner in which air products are offered to their end customers and corporate buyers. Through this connectivity our customers using TPConnects Internet booking engine powered OTA’s will greatly benefit from increased transparency including branded fares.
TPConnects Travel Aggregator b2b reseller Platform and Internet booking engine for Online Travel Agencies is available for Travel Agents globally with air, hotel, car, transfer, insurance, rail, cruise and dynamic holiday packaging.
About British Airways:
British Airways is the UK’s largest international airline and one of the world’s leading global premium carriers. Its principal place of business is London, the world’s largest premium travel market, with significant presence at Heathrow, Gatwick and London City Airports. It is expanding its schedule from Stansted, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol Airports.
British Airways’ main home at Heathrow is Terminal 5, regularly voted by passengers as the world’s best airport terminal in international surveys.
Operating one of the most extensive international scheduled airline route networks, together with its joint business agreement, codeshare and franchise partners, flies to more than 70 different countries. British Airways carries more than 40 million customers a year and has a fleet of nearly 300 aircraft. This summer, it will be operating nearly 1,000 flights a day across four London airports.
About TPConnects:
Established in 2012, TPConnects is a new generation travel booking solution: an innovative cloud based travel booking and distribution tool for airlines, travel agencies, online travel agencies and tour operators with a merchandising engine.
TPConnects is the first IT Vendor and Aggregator to receive dual Level 3 (highest level within the system with end-to-end) certifications from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). IATA certified that TPConnects as an IT Vendor is capable of offering NDC products and services for airlines, travel agencies and other distributors and as an Aggregator, TPConnects can consume and deploy NDC APIs deployed by any airline for the latest PADIS Publication 16.2 Schemas
TPConnects is a values-based company driven by the mission “Shaping the future of travel distribution.” TPConnects assist airlines to retail travel products, deliver rich content, bundle offers and provide consumers with the ability to create their own offers–choosing services like hotels, activities and enable travel agents to search, compare and sell travel products.
TPConnects product portfolio consist of Direct Connect NDC API, PSS agnostic NDC Gateway, Dynamic Pricing & Bundling and RET file reporting to BSP for Airlines, Travel Aggregator platform (integrated with PSS, 3 GDS and other travel suppliers including air and non-air ancillary product) with B2B and B2C capability for the travel agents
