DRMumbai: The IATA Agents Association of India (IAAI) has launched an exclusive portal for its members called ‘i-Top’, which stands for ‘Indian Travel Agents Own Portal’. The portal, developed by the Kochi-based startup Verteil Technologies, allows agents to issue air tickets on GDS (Global Distribution System) platform as well as the NDC (New Distribution Capability) standard of IATA.
According to Biji Eapen, National President, IAAI, “i-Top is the only portal that allows issuing tickets on both platforms. “The GDS booking on the portal is currently available for Travelport and will soon include Amadeus and Sabre. For bookings through NDC, we have onboard namely British Airways, Lufthansa and Emirates. This count is expected to reach 10 in the coming three to four months.”
As the IT provider, Verteil Technologies has received the NDC Level 3 Capability Certification from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is equivalent to any GDS player in the market. “In the first phase, i-Top offers air ticket bookings, and we will soon roll out other products like hotels, car rentals, insurance, train tickets and low-cost carriers. For subscribing to the portal, members have to pay a one-time registration fee of Rs. 25,000 plus taxes.”
IAAI has signed an exclusive contract with Verteil Technologies for access and distribution of NDC-listed airline products through its direct connect platform, ‘VDC’ (Verteil Direct Connect), which is integrated with the new portal. This NDC-aligned tool allows i-Top users to display and connect airline inventories directly to its host reservation system. The portal is openly accessible to IATA agents in the ‘Active Member’ category and, with certain limitations, to the ‘Trade Partner’ category members (tour operators & non-IATA agents).
According to Eapen, with i-Top allowing direct connectivity to airlines, it will also result in a substantial reduction in Agent Debit Memos (ADMs), since in an NDC environment the airline makes the offer directly to travel agents. Currently, 20 members of IAAI are using the portal in India. The first live ticket on the VDC was issued last month by Magellan Travel on British Airways by connecting directly with the airline using NDC transaction on the Chennai-London route.
Daniel Murphy, NDC Onboarding & Exploitation Manager, British Airways, said, “For British Airways, IATA developing a standard in the market for airline distribution for fares, content and ancillary is blurring the barriers in the market. It increases competition and we are looking at driving change in the market for our customers. NDC allows us to retail all our products to the indirect market, which wasn’t the case before. Personalisation is the future of bookings. All our future developments will be compliant with NDC.”
The portal can be integrated with IATA functionalities, BSP billing and payment systems or interlining with the NDCs and the XML models. In addition, the portal shall be integrated with Overseas Medical Insurance companies, Forex, rail and bus reservations, tour packages, cruise, car rental and all such facilities which could be termed as being under tourism and aviation segments. It will facilitate consolidators, OTAs or even any member agent to sell their own products through the portal to the network users and the user agents will have the flexibility to display all such related services, compare quality, services, trustworthiness, pricing and remunerative benefits that will help him to promote products without any compromise.
