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A new model for seamless customer journeys
Interlining has been the backbone of airline cooperation for decades. However, the legacy framework, developed before deregulation, is no longer relevant. Airlines struggle to maintain commercial control, particularly for ancillary services, which leaves customers with fewer choices.
The new framework for partnerships based on Offers & Orders standards empowers a transparent customer experience with real-time data sharing. By enabling all types of partnerships (e.g., airline-to-airline, intermodal, etc.), the new framework makes airline product catalogues more flexible, supporting any combination of flights and partner services.
From legacy interlining to Offers & Orders-based partnerships: access our 2024 update to explore the fundamentals and get involved!
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Bringing transparency to the customer
The new framework will ensure that responsibility for the customer at every touch point is clearly agreed between interline partners, and that this can be clearly communicated to customers, who will know exactly who to contact in case of disruption during their journey.
Real-time data shared at all customer touchpoints
At all customer-touchpoints, the party that is interacting with the customer will have all the data that they require to provide seamless customer service. Within the limitations of privacy and data protection regulations, this should include contextual data about the customer’s entire itinerary. The customer will have complete control over how they access and interact with their data, and how they access self-service options.
The foundation of the new framework: the Standard Retailer and Supplier Interline Agreement (SRSIA)
The SRSIA moves away from ticketing concepts of validating and participating carriers, and away from scheduling concepts of marketing and operating carriers. The framework introduces the concept of a “Retailer” and a “Supplier”. A Retailer initiates a relationship with a customer at the time of the customer making a shopping request and provides products and services to a customer either directly or by engaging Suppliers.
To learn more about the Partnerships with Offers and Orders initiative and to join the upcoming pilots, please contact us.
Guidance
- Overview of Offers & Orders-based Partnerships (September 2024): This document outlines the fundamentals of partnerships in the world of Offers & Orders, detailing the vision in the context of Modern AIrline Retailing with 100% Offers and Orders, Retailer-Supplier workflow, and the evolution from legacy PSS links to modern API-based interline interactions.
- Future of Interline White Paper: Released in October 2019, the whitepaper introduces the vision and dynamics underpinning the new interline framework. The vision outlined here will evolve as the industry progresses towards Modern Airline Retailing with 100% Offers and Orders.
Framework
Schemas
- Download the latest schemas
Contact us to get involved and join one of the upcoming Offers & Orders Partnerships pilots.
Interlining pilots (2019-2020)
- Interline Disruption Recovery in NDC
In this proof-of-value, British Airways and Vueling in partnership with Amadeus and Navitaire focused on overcoming interline disruptions between the ticket and the ticketless carrier using the NDC schemas.
The 3-month agile project enabled a much faster, wider and accurate proposition for disrupted customers. Now live in production, Vueling is able to seamlessly rebook British Airways passengers in 3 clicks and in less than 3 minutes without needing to learn technicalities of ticketing and complexity of traditional interoperability processes.
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- Using NDC and ONE Order
Singapore Airlines, in partnership with its low-cost carrier subsidiary Scoot, Amadeus, Navitaire and the Accounting Centre of China Aviation, piloted NDC and ONE Order standards in production with real passengers. The main objective was to simplify and enhance interline and interoperability across carriers in the Singapore Airlines Group.
The Pilot delivered end-to-end interline capabilities, covering Offer (shopping and price definition), Order (single Order ID, payment and sales accounting) and Delivery (through check-in and revenue recognition). It ran concurrently with regular airline operations and passengers with Orders were managed together with passengers with PNRs and ETKTs without interference. Finally, new Order accounting flows were tested with real-time communication to revenue accounting and upfront establishment of internal values and settlement amounts, removing need of proration.
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