First NDC-booked travellers flew on Qantas’ Sydney-Melbourne flight
Travelport has started the rollout of bookings on Qantas using International Air Transport Association (IATA) New Distribution Capability (NDC), with the first passenger flying from Sydney to Melbourne on March 18.
The travel retail platform said in a statement that this is the first NDC booking for the Australian carrier by any global distribution system (GDS).
ATPI and Maxim’s Travel issued the first Qantas NDC tickets via Smartpoint, Travelport’s agency desktop solution.
NDC booking capabilities will be gradually extended to agencies across Australia and New Zealand from April. Travelport-connected agents in the two countries, who have signed up to the Qantas Channel, will gradually be able to make NDC bookings using Smartpoint or Travelport’s API. Functions available include refunds, automated exchanges and schedule changes, currently supported in Smartpoint.
According to Travelport, there will be new capabalities available to agencies making bookings through the NDC-enabled Qantas Distribution Platform, which were not previously available in the indirect channel such as frequent flyer discounts and the ability to purchase carbon offsets
“Passengers actually traveling on journeys created via NDC are the best testament to the rigorous efforts that Qantas, Travelport, ATPI, Maxim’s Travel and all our test agencies have invested in successfully enabling modern travel retailing,” said Kyle Moore, head of customer strategy at Travelport.
Igor Kwiatkowski, Qantas executive manager, global sales & distribution, stated that despite impact of Covid the carrier remains committed to progressing its NDC programme.
“We’ve launched a number of new features in recent months, including special price offers for our Frequent Flyers and the ability for agents to help their customers purchase carbon offsets. These benefits are all designed to deliver richer content and a better experience for our customers and agency partners.”
Travelport was the first GDS to make an NDC connection to Qantas, and has since worked with the airline and a number of agencies to progressively integrate NDC content into the agent workflow for Travelport desktop and API customers.
Korean Air to trial IATA’s Travel Pass in May
Yet another airline – Korean Air – is adopting the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Travel Pass mobile app for its customers to manage their Covid testing or vaccination digitally.
The carrier plans to pilot the pass in May on the Incheon-Los Angeles (KE011) flight. As part of the goal to “Test & Fly” passengers can take a Covid antigen test at the Incheon Airport’s testing centre and receive test results within an hour on the app.
“We believe the digital travel pass will improve customer experience for passengers as they can share health information in a convenient and secure manner, and save processing time at the airports,” said Korean Air’s chief customer service officer, Seungbum Lee.
Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president, airport, passenger, cargo and security, said the partnership with Korean Air to trial the pass is an “important milestone” to give governments the confidence to restart the industry. “Jointly we will help demonstrate that aviation has developed a solution to ensure that passengers are meeting travel requirements.”
Apart from working with IATA to implement the pass, Korean Air is continuing with its safety and cleanliness programme “Care First”, which includes frequent and thorough disinfection of aircraft, temperature checks and minimal contact between passengers and employees.
Dubai on Singaporeans’ mind as they wait for resumption of international travel
A year on after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic most countries, including Singapore, have started vaccination programmes, raising hopes that borders will reopen soon and international travel resumed.
Travellers in Singapore have started to search for destinations to visit, leisure activities and hotels again. Dubai seems to be their destination of choice, emerging as the top searched destination for Singapore according to Booking.com data.
As revealed by Booking.com’s Future of Travel research the majority of travellers in Singapore said they are excited about travelling again (63%), with 76% stating they are now appreciative of travel and would not take it for granted.
Booking.com analysed theses recent searches to discover the trending destinations in the past year. Here are the top searched overseas destinations in 2021 (year-on-year search results February 1 to 28, 2021 vs February 3 to March 1, 2020)
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates (#16 in 2020)
- Bangkok, Thailand (#1 in 2020)
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (#3 in 2020)
- Johor Bahru, Malaysia (#2 in 2020
- Manila, Philippines (#5 in 2020
- Tokyo, Japan (#4 in 2020)
- Hong Kong (#26 in 2020)
Booking.com said although the (destination) rankings are influenced by international responses to the virus, potential air travel bubbles and how quickly restrictions are lifted, it shows Singapore travellers’ appetite for intra-region travel remains strong.
Last year’s top five searched destinations also remain favourites with travellers this year, with only two new entrants – Dubai and Hong Kong – rising 15 and 21 places respectively to enter the top seven.
• Featured image credit: Source:Qantas
