Tag Archives: IATA

The first edition of the Travel Tech ME Congress concluded at Marriot Al Jaddaf in Dubai, UAE. The event gathered 100 technology experts, travel agents, airline operators and airport officials to provide a forum of exchange on the current technologies in tourism. Organised by Verve Management, the two-day congress started with Diego Lofeudo, Director of Business Unit, Corporate, Yas Marina Circuit, UAE who made the official welcome address. Conference Chairman, Albert Fernando, COO, Travelwings opened day two of Travel Tech ME Congress, where he said, “A great initiative for Verve Management, that has helped tourism stakeholders better understand and share future trends in travel technology. The industry looks forward to the congress next year, bringing in even more experts in travel technology.”Several presentations over two days shed light on the latest innovations happening across the world in terms of travel and tourism. Albert Dias, Co-founder & CTO, Musafir discussed the importance of sub-second search speed and its effect on a travelers’ decision-making process.Juan Iván Martín, Head of Innovation, FDS, from IATA discussed travel blockchain, the introduction of the IATA coin as payment methods and how hackathons such as the IATA-NDC Hackathon-2016 in Dubai have helped the airline industry as well as the hotel and travel industries by introducing innovative ideas, and applications that have been implemented and increased revenue in the travel and tourism industry in the region. From blockchain, IATA coins being implemented, disruption, the importance of sub-second search speed, web technologies challenging today’s relevance and the future existence of mobile apps. The two-day conference was concluded with a panel discussion of the lessons learned and the way forward, on the evolution in the hotel distribution system.

Despite sluggish global economic growth, the UAE will lead Middle East passenger growth in 2017 with an annual increase of more than 6.3 per cent, according to estimates from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Middle East carriers have reported the strongest annual traffic growth of any region globally for the fifth year running in 2016, according to the IATA. RPKs (revenue passenger kilometres) grew 11.8 per cent consolidating the region’s position as the third-largest market for global passengers. Capacity growth of 13.7 per cent outstripped demand however, driving down the average load factor by 1.3 percentage points to 74.7 per cent. With a number of aviation mega-projects underway across the GCC and wider Middle East, airports are expanding slightly ahead of the curve in demand, with capacity in 2016 increasing by 13.9 per cent and a forecast for 2017 of 10.1 per cent.

US government has announced restrictions on the type of electronic items that could be carried onboard flights to the US from certain airports, reveals a statement from IATA. Even the UK government has announced changes in its aviation security measures on selected inbound flights to the UK that restrict the size of electronic items that may be carried by passengers in the cabin. In a statement, the UK government has said that flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Tunisia would be affected by these restrictions. A Q&A and factsheet available on the US Department of Homeland Security website reveals that passengers flying to the US directly from the named airports — Queen Alia International Airport (AMM), Cairo International Airport (CAI), Ataturk International Airport (IST), King Abdul-Aziz International Airport (JED), King Khalid International Airport (RUH), Kuwait International Airport (KWI), Mohammed V Airport (CMN), Hamad International Airport (DOH), Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) – should allow extra time at the airport. IATA calculations show that this ban will impact about 393 scheduled passenger flights per week, equivalent to about 2.7 % of the total international scheduled passenger flights to the UK. In the US, it would affect 350 scheduled flights a week, equivalent to about 2% of total international flights.

Travelport announced that it has become the first GDS to be granted with both ‘Aggregator Level One’ certification and ‘IT Provider Level Two’ status by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as part of its New Distribution Capability (NDC) programme. For airlines, this means that Travelport is able to fully integrate with its NDC application programme interface should the airline choose to use NDC-XML messaging to distribute and deliver their fares and products. For travel agencies and travel management companies, this means that when shopping for and booking flights via Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, they will have even more enhanced travel content and greater access to ancillary offers. In particular, Travelport-connected agents will be able to make ancillary sales post the original flight booking, and through their preferred agency workflows, for the first time. Travelport has also achieved the NDC-capable ‘IT Provider’ Level Two status, making it only the second organisation — and first GDS — ever to be designated as NDC certified and NDC Capable.  This further expands its NDC capabilities and means that Travelport also has the option to distribute IATA NDC offers for fares and prices on behalf of the airlines electing to use IATA’s industry standards. Ian Heywood, Travelport’s Global Head of Product and Marketing, Air Commerce, commented: “We know the industry needs to transform the way flights are sold and IATA’s NDC is an important part of this.  It very much complements the pioneering merchandising technology we launched in 2014 with our Rich Content and Branding solution which enables airlines to retail their full range of products, and extensively promote their brand, to the travel trade and corporate bookers.  With this latest industry-first milestone, we …

Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) has announced its decision to implement International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) New Distribution Capability (NDC) in a modular approach. Saudia has appointed TPConnects, a leading technology solutions provider, as its NDC distribution partner to manage the NDC standard platform. At Saudia, implementation of NDC is seen as a major Transformation project focusing on revenue drivers, major cost reducing programs and implementing ONE Order initiatives, beyond opportunities in distribution. NDC standards enable Saudia to offer our guests the opportunity to have a consistent shopping experience, including access to rich content, ability to buy ancillary products and services and to be recognized and receive personalized offers, wherever they shop for Saudia products, especially from the travel agents and Online Travel Agency channels. The introduction of NDC could help travel agents to improve the offering to the customer, to upsell additional services including branded fares or fare families which are of value to both the traveler and the corporation and create business process improvements.