Oojo.com CEO, Gulce Karsli Rozenveld, speaks to Travel Monitor, offering a frank take on the state of NDC from a frontline perspective. This op-ed sheds light on why standardisation (not just innovation) is the real missing link, the reason why booking rates via NDC remain under 20 per cent and the technical chaos OTAs face when connecting to airline NDC content.
Airlines make bold claims about NDC, but behind the scenes, there is a lot of mess. As an OTA, we navigate constant chaos and inconsistencies, and at the end of the day, it’s us who absorb the extra costs and inefficiencies. It’s time for the industry to call out the overpromised future.
The NDC promise
Airlines have long touted NDC as a game-changer. Two promises were made: first, that dynamic pricing will lead to better results and increased sales; and second, that airlines will soon offer a complete and standardized way of delivering fares and extra services via NDC.
The reality is a bit dimmer, garnished with a bitter taste of technical problems. No matter how much effort we invest in the OTA side, the road is plagued with many technical challenges for each and every airline content we want to sell on NDC, so we often resort to ignoring the content altogether.
The second claim has been that airlines will soon offer a complete and standardized way of delivering fares and extra services via NDC. What we see, however, is far from standard: setups vary wildly from one carrier to another; no two integrations work alike. It becomes clear pretty quickly that each airline has built its own version of this new system, which means that even when we use an aggregator, we and the aggregators must still perform special adjustments for each airline. The promised uniformity is nowhere in sight.
Making matters worse, airline support is lacking, leaving OTAs stranded. We’re dealing with regional sales teams of airlines who try their best to commercially incentivise NDC sales but lack the technical knowledge to help us fix its issues. While the airlines should essentially be the ones holding our hand during the onboarding and challenging aspects, we end up shouldering both the extra costs and the time lost trying to navigate NDC’s issues.
Numbers don’t lie
The business of OTA’s is a numbers game, and numbers don’t lie. Booking rates remain stubbornly low—NDC bookings are still below 20%. This has got to be the clearest indication yet that something is not working despite the heavy push from the airlines.
There are many challenges OTAs face that start with booking and end with handling the fare. First, we receive millions of searches every day. An average customer searches 12–15 times online before they actually book the ticket. Airlines impose strict limits on how many times we can search as their systems can’t handle the load, and such a technical shortfall creates a cycle of frustration. Then add incomplete flight disruption management, fare and tax breakdown issues, commission calculation challenges, and data synchronization issues to that… Consider this: some airlines do not provide a complete breakdown of fares, taxes, and surcharges during shopping, reshopping, refunds, or exchanges. OTAs are left to handle them. Also, precise fare strings and ticket mask information are essential for commission-based adjustments with airlines, but this data is missing in NDC responses for some airlines. Thus, OTAs ought to generate approximate proration, which is inherently inaccurate and carries financial risks.
We are also dealing with after-sales support issues. When a customer needs to change a booking or, say, add an extra service, the systems are simply not as straightforward. At least handle it smoothly. The promised upgrade to richer content and the ability to personalize offers is not enough if the basic tasks—booking, modifying, and canceling—fail to work properly.
Taking a hard look
What this whole situation signals is that we as an industry, are still light-years away from the original NDC promise. Watching airlines struggle with basic NDC technical operations one day and then hear them talk about advanced AI integrations the next is mind-boggling and, honestly, frustrating. How can we talk about introducing advanced technology if we haven’t made sure the current technology function properly? What is needed is clear, enforced standardization – something that only a body like IATA can deliver. With a proper set of standards that every carrier must follow, we could see a reduction in these technical mishaps. It is not enough for airlines to claim they are supporting NDC; they should be obliged to prove it through reliable, standardized performance. Trust me; OTAs would be more than happy to provide unbiased real-world tests.
It’s time for industry leaders to focus on improving current systems that currently can’t even support a high volume of searches and bookings without choking. Instead of trying to predict future problems, let’s fix the now problems. We need to see the promised uniformity in how fares are delivered, how extra services are added, and how after-sales support is provided.
It is clear that carriers are not meeting the expectations they set. The system is supposed to lower costs and boost efficiency, yet we end up paying more in operational headaches and lost opportunities. The NDC promise remains painfully under-delivered. Only strong, IATA-enforced standards and hands-on help from the airlines in this transition can fix it. Without them, the industry will continue to struggle with systems that complicate rather than simplify travel—for all parties involved.
This article was supplied by Oojo.com CEO, Gulce Karsli Rozenveld.
