Air Canada has begun processing transactions through ATPCO and SITA's NDC Exchange platform, which facilitates connections between airlines and third-party sellers.
ATPCO director of distribution Graham Wareham said Air Canada, the platform's launch customer, is "in production and ready to receive transactions." The agency already has sent a single transaction to make sure everything is working correctly. The exchange exposes all Air Canada's direct content to connected sellers. The content includes branded fares and Flight Pass prepaid credits, and sellers include distribution platform Verteil Technologies, Innfinity Software Systems, Serko booking and expense platform Zeno and travel management company platform Atriis.
Wareham said about a dozen carriers are in the pipeline to join the platform, nine of them this year. On the seller side, the pipeline is about 50 or 60 providers, he said. "We've really been trying to build an infrastructure around NDC that supports carrier-to-carrier, carrier-to-seller and carrier-to-GDS, bringing the robustness of the existing channels into the" global distribution system, he said.
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