Airlines continue to move their best fares, bundles, and ancillaries to NDC channels, and several apply surcharges or content restrictions to traditional EDIFACT bookings. For travel agencies and OTAs, the question is no longer whether to support NDC, but how to run NDC alongside GDS content without breaking servicing, reporting, or customer support. This checklist is for agency owners, product heads, and technology leads planning that transition.
1. Business readiness
- [ ] Identify your top 10–15 airlines by volume and check each one's NDC status and EDIFACT surcharge policy
- [ ] Estimate the fare and ancillary gap between NDC and GDS content on your top routes
- [ ] Confirm IATA accreditation, or the arrangement you use to ticket and settle
- [ ] Decide which customer segments move first (leisure, corporate, SME)
- [ ] Review corporate contracts: negotiated fares must be loadable and visible in NDC channels too
- [ ] Assign a single owner for the NDC programme
2. Connectivity strategy
- [ ] Choose the connection model per airline: direct airline API, NDC through your GDS, or an NDC aggregator
- [ ] Compare aggregators on airline coverage, servicing support, and commercial model
- [ ] Check which NDC schema versions each connection supports
- [ ] Plan for an omnichannel mix; most agencies will run GDS, NDC, and direct content together for years
3. Shopping and display
- [ ] Normalise offers from NDC and EDIFACT into one results page, with like-for-like comparison
- [ ] Display branded fares and bundles clearly, including what is and is not included
- [ ] Handle offer expiry; NDC offers are time-limited, so price and availability must be re-validated before payment
- [ ] Show ancillaries (seats, bags, meals) at the right step in the booking flow
- [ ] Measure response times; some NDC APIs are slower than GDS availability
4. Booking and payment
- [ ] Order creation that stores the airline order ID alongside your own booking reference
- [ ] Payment options supported per airline: agency BSP settlement, customer card, or both
- [ ] Hold-and-pay-later rules and time limits per carrier
- [ ] 3-D Secure and PCI DSS scope reviewed for any card data you handle
5. Servicing (where most NDC projects struggle)
- [ ] Voluntary changes, cancellations, and refunds supported per airline through the API
- [ ] Involuntary changes (schedule changes, disruptions) received through airline notifications and surfaced to agents
- [ ] Ancillary purchase after booking
- [ ] A documented fallback when a servicing action is not available via API (airline portal, call centre)
- [ ] Agent training on the differences between PNR-based and order-based servicing
6. Mid-office, finance, and reporting
- [ ] NDC bookings flow into your mid-office and accounting systems with the same data quality as GDS bookings
- [ ] Reconciliation of airline orders against BSP or card settlement
- [ ] Corporate reporting and duty-of-care data (traveller location, itinerary) captured for NDC bookings
- [ ] Commission, service fee, and markup rules applied consistently across content sources
7. Technical foundations
- [ ] An abstraction layer so front-end and servicing code do not depend on any single airline's API
- [ ] Logging of every request and response, with sensitive data masked
- [ ] Monitoring of error rates and latency per airline
- [ ] Sandbox access and certification plans for each airline or aggregator
Phased rollout plan
| Phase | Scope | Exit criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Pilot | 2–3 airlines, one market, shop and book only | Bookings reconciled without manual fixes |
| 2. Servicing | Changes, refunds, ancillaries for pilot airlines | Servicing handled in-tool for most requests |
| 3. Scale | Top 10–15 airlines, corporate clients | NDC share and margin tracked monthly |
| 4. Optimise | Offer ranking, personalisation, more carriers | Conversion and servicing cost benchmarks met |
Red flags
- A plan that covers shopping and booking but not servicing
- No owner for reconciliation of NDC orders
- Hard-coded airline-specific logic spread across the codebase
How to use this checklist
Run sections 1–2 as a strategy workshop, then use sections 3–7 as the technical backlog. Revisit the airline list quarterly, as NDC coverage and surcharge policies change often.
How Syslabs helps
Syslabs works with travel agencies and OTAs on API development and integration for NDC, aggregators, and GDS integration, building the normalisation layer that lets one booking flow handle every content source. For background on the wider transition, see our article on NDC vs. EDIFACT.