After much speculation about when Delta Air Lines would enter the world of New Distribution Capability—and for most observers it was always a matter of when, not if—the industry has an answer.
The carrier is in the process of building its NDC solution with various partners and intends to have some “milestone releases” available in late 2024 for “customers that want to come and test and learn alongside us,” Delta managing director of sales technology and global sales support Sara Reid told BTN. “As we move into 2025, the first half of the year, we will do some integrations with the ecosystem and start to work on unlocking or opening value with some of the new products we are looking to put into the marketplace.”
During the second half of 2025, Delta plans to enable omnichannel servicing at scale, and from 2025 and beyond, to enhance and “continuously improve innovations for the industry,” according to a timeline slide shared with BTN.
Reid reiterated that Delta did not currently have plans to follow in the footsteps of other carriers and remove fares from EDIFACT channels or to impose surcharges.
“We absolutely have no plans to prematurely remove content or impose surcharges as adoption tactics,” Reid said. “We think if this journey is done right, and we plan to do this right, that we’ll drive adoption by creating value for customers, not by these forceful tactics.”
The airline also announced its plans during a Thursday morning Business Showcase event.
Solution Design Partners
Partners Delta is working with include Accelya, Airlines Reporting Corp., the International Air Transport Association and Google. Reid did not go into detail about what each partnership would entail, other than to say that Delta is building toward the IATA 21.3 schema, but that “we are not going to allow that schema to hold us back from creating value for our customers,” she said.
Delta later added that the carrier will work with Google to “optimize the offers we provide across all channels.”
Accelya confirmed that Delta would use its FLX platform’s modular approach and APIs to deliver the carrier’s NDC content and scale integrations, “allowing Delta to reach a vast range of sales channels while maintaining the airline’s ability to deliver its next generation product strategy.”
“We believe these solution design partners are the best in the ecosystem and in the industry, and we are working with them in new ways,” Reid said. “We are not simply taking out-of-the-box solutions implemented with other carriers. We are challenging the status quo to say we want to make sure that all that information we collected during the discovery phase, that we are going to be able to implement.”
Delta’s goal is to design a solution that will mimic the experience of its website, which Reid added is something customers said “would be ideal.”
Additional Partners
Reid also noted that the global distribution systems have been part of the carrier’s discovery phase and anticipates that those integrations will happen in the first half of 2025.
At last week’s Elevate and TravelConnect conference hosted by ATPCO and ARC, AmTrav CEO Jeff Klee acknowledged on stage with Reid that the travel management company also was working with Delta. As for other TMCs, “I have personally spoken to over 100 agencies and probably that many corporates as we worked through this process the last couple of years,” Delta SVP of global sales Bob Somers said. “From every major agency and major corporation, someone is on our advisory board. … We want to make sure we get the right scale and understand what our customers are looking for.”
When asked if the carrier was working with American Express Global Business Travel on its list of 162 NDC use cases that require solutions, Reid said that “GBT is a great partner of ours. They participate in our technical advisory board, and we have regular ongoing engagements with them as well. We have their list of their minimum viable product, and we are very aware of what our customers are asking for. We’ve gone even deeper than their 140-some items.”
Delta also has been working with SAP Concur. “We’ve facilitated numerous conversations with TMCs and corporations with Concur to make sure we all collectively understood as they continue to evolve T2,” Somers said, referring to the technology company’s redesigned booking platform. “The concerns of the customers were voiced very loudly.”
Reid added that Delta is meeting regularly with Concur to ensure the display of any new products, and is working with other online booking tools, too, as it prepares to launch its NDC solution.
Selling and Servicing ‘Transformation’
Delta is calling its NDC development a “selling and servicing transformation.” Its focus is to advance Delta’s selling and servicing across all channels to create “better products, better merchandizing, better servicing, and we will do that by being collaborative with our customers and industry partners,” Somers said.
Reid added: “We have pushed EDFIACT to the limit. We need this new technology to create better products, and we are creating those products with corporate customers in mind.”
The carrier’s corporate advisory board has been “working with us for two years on this journey, and they are very comfortable with the timeline,” Somers said. “Do it right; don’t do it fast.”
Work on Delta’s NDC strategy ramped up during the fourth quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024 when the carrier was in its “listening” stage and gathering information from stakeholders across the “travel ecosystem.” Delta is now in its “act stage,” Reid said, and it will continue to listen to feedback from stakeholders throughout the process and incorporate that into Delta’s NDC solution.
“I don’t believe there is a finish line to this journey. It’s innovation and will be continuous improvement, continuing to elevate the experience based on what the customers say,” Reid said.
And what the corporate customers have been saying “loud and clear,” Reid said, is that they want to ensure their travel programs can be maintained with negotiated rates in their preferred channels, with all data and information about their programs visible and with duty of care and customer safety ensured. “Those are table stakes,” Reid said. “But they’re also giving us new ideas that we are exploring to enhance their corporate travelers’ journey.”
When asked whether Delta would use continuous pricing, which United Airlines uses and American Airlines has said it soon would add, Reid declined to share the carrier’s plans.
Delta intends to be “very transparent” with customers and partners regarding its NDC capabilities. “We plan to create a website that will allow people to know where we are on our journey and the capabilities that are available, and we will keep that up to date,” Reid said.
Somers added that one of the biggest differences between what Delta will offer compared with other carriers is the “prioritization of corporate and business travel. That will be at the forefront,” he said, suggesting that other carriers have lowered the prominence of that segment in their sales strategy.
In addition to its NDC announcement Thursday, Delta shared that it planned to roll out this summer a new version of the Agency on Demand dashboard that is part of its Delta Professional portal for agents and corporate clients, with a “new look and feel” to monitor contract performance. The new version will enable data downloads.
Somers reiterated the carrier’s view of the corporate segment: “At the end of Q1, our corporate sales were up 14 percent year over year. Corporate is coming back, and we’re very excited to see that trend improving. We’re committed more than ever to providing the service excellence our customers expect from Delta. We saw other airlines completely deprioritize corporate travel and the travel industry in general, the TMCs in corporate travel. Those decisions undoubtedly impact customers. We saw it, and we heard it on a daily basis.”
