DRMumbai: The NDC (New Distribution Capability) Partner Program of Lufthansa Group (including Swiss International Airlines and Austrian Airlines) in India has gone live with TBO. NDC is a travel industry-supported program launched by IATA for the development and market adoption of a new XML-based data transmission standard. It enhances the capability of communications between airlines and travel agents.
“We have got the Lufthansa family to directly connect with the TBO platform,” said Ankush Nijhawan, Co-founder, TBO Group. “For quite some time now, airlines have wanted to get rid of GDS due to their high cost. As the maiden project of their NDC Partner Program in India, Lufthansa has chosen TBO which is a great validation of our market leadership and the fact that we have a 200-engineer-strong tech team.”
The TBO NDC with Lufthansa Group went live in June. TBO’s target is to go live on NDC with one airline every month. Singapore Airlines will go live in July and British Airways in August. Oman Air, American Airlines and Qantas are in the immediate pipeline. The difference in fares between GDS and TBO NDC is minimum Rs. 1300 in Economy and up to Rs. 6000 in Business Class on the India–Europe sector.
Further, certain class of bookings which cannot be seen on the GDS can be booked through TBO NDC. Prices for booking ancillaries are also lower. Group bookings are restricted to 9 pax on GDS whereas NDC has no such restrictions. Promotional fares offered by Lufthansa which are not on the GDS can also be found on the TBO NDC.
