Today, customers want personalization, efficiency, and seamless experience on any channel. Modern Airline Retailing, supported by the implementation of NDC, ONE Order, and related standards, can achieve this and move airline distribution away from legacy artifacts and into the future. This is what the transition to 100% Offers and Orders is all about.
The journey is well underway, but there is more to be achieved.
Watch our end-of-year (2024) update on the status of the journey.
Get a comprehensive overview of the IATA standards and programs enabling value creation through modern retailing. Useful information and resources are also made available to support organizations across the value chain in planning their transition - from strategy to initiation and implementation.
A World of Offers and Orders
This page provides a gateway to the latest references and resources available to support your organization with the transition to Modern Airline Retailing. Start your exploration with the high-level industry transition roadmap, which highlights the readiness levels and timelines for key stakeholders in our value chain, providing a clear path forward.
Retailing with Offers
Delivering with Orders
Digital Identity
Airline Retailing Knowledge Hub
Your one-stop-shop for useful guidance and resources that support your organization in planning this transition.
Explore the below sections and find the information you need - from factsheets and guidance through to practical tools, implementation case studies and thought leadership.
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The "In Focus" section resources distil key aspects and insights from the modern airline retailing transformation into bite-sized, easily digestible factsheets, enabling you to dive deeper into the subject matter and plan ahead - one step at a time.
- Offer Creation - Moving away from Booking Classes and Fare Rules: discusses the transition from traditional Reservation Booking Designators (RBDs) and Fare Rules, to a modernized Offers & Orders framework aimed at enhancing customer experience and operational efficiency.
- Partnerships with Offers and Orders - Beyond Codeshare: introduces the possible evolution of airline partnerships from traditional codeshare agreements to a modern Offers & Orders framework.
- NDC factsheet: the NDC program, the NDC standard, and more.
- Dynamic Offers factsheet: the combination of dynamic pricing, continuous pricing, and dynamic bundling capabilities.
- ONE Order factsheet: one reference, one process, one industry.
- Settlement with Orders factsheet: a lean XML data exchange standard and a process simplifying the settlement between travel industry partners.
- Airline Retailing Maturity index (ARM index) factsheet: the ARM index helps airlines and their partners assess where they are on the journey towards a world of 100% Offers and Orders and provides visibility on new capability developments they may consider, to drive more benefits going forward.
Guidance
For Airlines and Value Chain Partners:
- Modern Airline Retailing - Industry Transition Roadmap: the first transition roadmap incorporates industry feedback, along with key elements deemed crucial for a successful transition. It is based on current knowledge with added projections and high-level dependencies. Timelines will vary depending on airline size, business models, and regional factors.This will evolve over time as the 100% Offers and Orders journey progresses.
- Business Case and Decision Drivers - Lessons from the Leaders: developed as a sequel to the April 2023 release "Modern Airline Retailing - A Business Case", the document expands on particular aspects of the business case content, while also providing insights into how to engage senior management.
- Modern Airline Retailing - Retailing Platform Procurement Considerations: the latest release by the Retailing Consortium serves as a guide for airlines in the procurement process of a modern and modular platform for airline retailing, based on 100% Offers and Orders. It outlines key principles, considerations, and business requirements to be taken into account by airlines when evaluating vendors and their solutions.
- Modern Airline Retailing - A Business Case: this document focuses on the next phase of the industry journey to Modern Airline Retailing, that entails a significant transformation of the IT infrastructure and underlying processes, in order to enable airlines to fully retail their products without constraints. It summarizes findings from the Consortium - a group of airlines that was formed under the IATA umbrella in August 2022.
- IT Provider Readiness and Airline Transition Pathways: the latest output of the Airline Retailing Consortium's work presents the findings of extensive research with 15 IT Providers, assessing their commitment and readiness to roll out a new generation of solutions, as well as timeframes to transition to 100% Offers and Orders.
- Modern Airline Retailing - Reference Business Architecture: developed by the Retailing Consortium and approved as an IATA Passenger Services Conference (PSC) Recommended Practice 1786a, the Reference Business Architecture framework helps airlines to strategically plan and engineer their Modern Airline Retailing transformation, while ensuring cohesion across all key functions and departments within the organization - from Distribution to Finance Management, Procurement and IT.
- Get started with Airline Retailing: the primary purpose of this paper is to provide airlines with the necessary understanding to start their transformation journey.
- Dynamic Offers - a quick reference guide
- The Standards Retailer and Supplier Interline Agreement (SRSIA)
For Sellers and Corporate Travel Managers:
- TMC Business Capabilities needed in a context of Offers and Orders
- NDC guide for Travel Sellers
- NDC mini-guide for Travel Management Companies
- Being NDC-ready: an essential guide for Corporate Travel Managers (V.2.0 - 2022)
- Distribution and Services RFP Framework for Corporate Buyers
Discover the IATA Advisory Councils and Groups that provide the Strategic Industry Governance supporting the industry transition to Modern Airline Retailing:
- The Distribution Advisory Council (DAC) acts as advisor to the IATA Board of Governors and works closely with IATA management on all matters referred to it by the Director General and related to industry distribution.
- The Digital Transformation Advisory Council (DTAC) acts as advisor to the IATA Board of Governors and works closely with IATA management on all matters referred to it by the Director General and related to industry transformation and aviation industry data.
- The Industry Financial Advisory Council acts as advisor to the IATA Board of Governors, the Director General, other Advisory Councils, IATA management and other relevant IATA bodies on matters concerning industry financial services and standards, and related policy aspects.
IATA also engages with key corporations and travel management companies in the business travel arena with the objective to gather feedback and inputs into the transformational journey to Modern Airline Retailing:
- The Travel Manager Advisory Group (TMAG) comprises corporate travel managers and procurement professionals from key corporations in Europe and North America. It was formed by IATA to act as a constructive critical voice and provide consultation on NDC and related initiatives.
- The Global Travel Management Executive Council (GTEC) comprises senior executives from leading global multinational and local Travel Management Companies (TMC) in the international travel agency ecosystem. It was established by IATA with the objective to act at a strategic level as an executive and visionary council that provides a constructive critical voice on NDC and all other TMC-related initiatives.
Case Studies & Implementer Soundbites
We have compiled implementation presentations, case studies, use cases, and interviews from industry players with different levels of implementation maturity. Find the ones applicable to your needs in the links below:
Airline Retailing Implementation Soundbites series:
- Airline Retailing at British Airways
- Airline Retailing at Lufthansa Group
- Airline Retailing at Turkish Airlines - the CIO perspective
- Airline Retailing at SAS
- Airline Retailing at Air India
- IATA Industry Financial Advisory Council Chair's perspective on modern retailing
- Airline Retailing at Emirates Group (distribution update)
- Airline Retailing at Emirates Group (finance update)
- Airline Retailing at Finnair
- Airline Retailing at IAG
- Airline Retailing at Air Canada
- Airline Retailing at Air France - KLM (part 1)
- Airline Retailing at Air France - KLM (part 2)
- Airline Retailing at American Airlines
- Airline Retailing at Finnair (finance's perspective)
- Airline Retailing at Kenya Airways
- Airline Retailing at LATAM
- Airline Retailing at Oman Air
- Airline Retailing at Singapore Airlines
- Airline Retailing at Swiss International Air Lines
- Airline Retailing at United
- Airline Retailing at American Express Global Business Travel - Neo
- Airline Retailing at FCM Travel
- Airline Retailing at Thomalex
- Airline Retailing at Spotnana
- Airline Retailing at Deloitte (the corporate customer perspective)
Concrete implementation examples:
Tech Tools
- Airline Retailing Maturity (ARM) index registry is the sole source for industry recognition of player’s capabilities enabled by the IATA EASD standards.
- Modern Airline Retailing - Business Reference Architecture framework
- AirTech Zone - the IATA Developer Portal is an open platform to access IATA and open industry innovative resources (e.g., standards, schemas, API's, datasets, etc.) available to the external developer community.
- Distribution Schemas space enables you to access and download the distribution schemas (the current NDC 21.3, or older versions).
- The Open API Hub - APIs supporting airline distribution processes, including shop, order, pay capabilities irrespective of distribution channel.
Thought Leadership
- Leveraging Orders and Digital Identity to Enhance the Customer Travel Experience (IATA - Consortium, October 2024)
- Business Case and Decision Drivers - Learnings from the Leaders: developed as a sequel to the April 2023 release "Modern Airline Retailing - A Business Case", the document expands on particular aspects of the business case content, while also providing insights into how to engage senior management. (IATA - Consortium, March 2024)
- IT Provider Readiness and Airline Transition Pathways: the latest output of the Airline Retailing Consortium's work presents the findings of extensive research with 15 IT Providers, assessing their commitment and readiness to roll out a new generation of solutions, as well as timeframes to transition to 100% Offers and Orders. (IATA - Consortium, October 2023)
- Modern Airline Retailing - A Business Case: the paper focuses on the next phase of the industry journey to Modern Airline Retailing, that entails a significant transformation of the IT infrastructure and underlying processes, in order to enable airlines to fully retail their products without constraints. It summarizes findings from the Airline Retailing Consortium - a group of airlines that was formed under the IATA umbrella in August 2022. (IATA - Consortium, March 2023)
- Airline Retailing - an Industry Vision for Offers and Orders: the document outlines the vision for transforming airline distribution into a modern retailing framework with 100% Offers and Orders, which aims to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency. (IATA, 2021)
- Servicing in NDC - Where are you?: The NDC schema makes streamlined and automated servicing possible, with the potential to deliver a better experience than what is possible via traditional EDIFACT distribution. Yet, there are legacy constraints that block some servicing capabilities,and having a value chain conversation can help to iron out implementation challenges of servicing. (IATA, 2023)
In collaboration with partners:
- Can Airlines Accelerate the transition to Modern Retailing? (IATA-BCG study, 2024)
- Successful Airline Retailing Requires Industry Partnerships (IATA - BCG study, 2023)
- Reshaping the Airline Organization for the Future of Retail (IATA - BCG study, 2022)
- The vendors’ view on transition to a world of Offers and Orders (IATA - TiM white paper, 2022)
- Airline retailing: the value at stake (McKinsey, 2019)
The Airline Retailing Newsletter - The Hub - is your gateway to regular and timely updates on IATA's Airline Retailing and Distribution programs and initiatives.
You can find our latest & past editions below and we invite you to join our global subscriber community and start receiving the newsletter and all related updates straight to your inbox.
Airline Retailing Newsletter latest edition:
- Airline Retailing News: Q3-4 2024 edition
- Airline Retailing News: Q2 2024 edition
- Airline Retailing News: Q1 2024 edition
- Airline Retailing News: end-of-year edition
- Airline Retailing News: October-November 2023 edition
- Airline Retailing News: July-September 2023 edition
- Airline Retailing News: May-June 2023 edition
- Airline Retailing News: March-April 2023 edition
- For a selection of articles from our past editions, visit the Airline Retailing News Hub
If you need any assistance, or wish to propose a topic for our upcoming editions, please, do not hesitate to contact us.
Airline Retailing in Action
Get Started!
Possible next steps to consider are:
- Define your strategic objectives in Distribution & Payment
- Determine your approach to channel & content management, as well as product development
- Develop a business case for short and long-term value and required investment
- Establish an actionable roadmap and engage your trade, sales, and channel partners
- Understand the implications for your organization, talent, culture, and new ways of working
For a quick summary of practical deployment recommendations and information, aligned to your type of business (i.e., Airlines, Sellers, Corporate Buyers, Developers), we invite you to visit the Get Started with Airline Retailing section of our website.
The IATA SMEs and Regional Offices are also here to support you with your planning and actual journey towards Modern Airline Retailing.
Please, do not hesitate to contact us.
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