BA, Aer Lingus, Iberia and Vueling will use the Travelport+ NDC channel to offer exclusive fares and more ancillary sales options that cannot be offered on GDSs. 

Chris Ramm, Travelport vice-president global enterprise, air partners, said: “This is a really important step to enable modern travel retailing. Agents will have simplified access to IAG content.”

The deal follows a similar agreement between BA and Amadeus in February. Almost half of BA’s UK bookings are now sold using NDC channels, with passengers booking through NDC channels “100 times” more likely to make an ancillary purchase. NDC also allows airlines to price dynamically based on a customer’s personal information.

“The key thing is that for a long time, Edifact has worked for us in distribution, but it is limited; there are no additional price points or ancillaries,” said Katy Cardwell, BA’s head of distribution and payments.

NDC also permits video content to be displayed. “We are going to be able to be more flexible and develop video product proposals, so we are really happy to have Travelport onboard with us,” said Celia Munoz Espin, Iberia’s sales strategy and distribution director.

Fees for Travelport+ will be detailed once the pilot scheme is close to launch. BA said they would be “similar” to Amadeus, which are £1.60 per segment via NDC and £11 via the GDS.

The higher charge for GDS sales has angered some agents, but Cardwell said NDC was not anti-competitive.

“We believe it will actually encourage greater competition, among both carriers and agencies of all sizes, as they seek to respond to growing demand for new and better personalised products and services," she said.

“NDC provides many more opportunities for this type of innovation than the legacy Edifact technology and we think agencies recognise the advantages, including the commercial benefits, of adopting NDC.”

BA said it would provide updated timelines for implementation “in due course”.

“We’ll continue working with Travelport on the technical implementation for NDC distribution throughout 2022, adding new features and functionality ahead of the full NDC roll-out,” it added.

Rival carriers are also on the NDC path. Lufthansa expects to launch NDC with Travelport in mid-2022 and Emirates introduced a surcharge of up to £18 on GDS bookings in July.