As we explored in our last blog, NDC alone isn’t enough to unlock airline retailing’s potential. The real bottleneck lies deeper — in the infrastructure that still powers most global flight sales. Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) like Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport once revolutionized airline commerce. But in 2025, the same systems that connected the world are now the single biggest obstacle to modern retail transformation.
Ask any GDS executive and you’ll hear the same line: “We support NDC.” On paper, that’s true. Each touts NDC certifications, pilot programs, and promises of being future-ready. But the economics tell another story.
The GDS revenue model still depends on filed fares, EDIFACT messaging, RBD buckets, and segment fees triggered every time an agent books a seat. These structures reward volume, not innovation — and depend on rigid, legacy workflows that NDC was built to replace. The GDS model makes the right thing for airlines — modern retailing — the wrong thing for GDS profitability.
It’s like asking Blockbuster to build a streaming service but still depend on DVD rental fees for profit. You can modernize the technology, but not the incentives.
As of early 2025, fewer than 3% of global GDS bookings use NDC standards (T2RL, 2025). Even among these, many lack full servicing, refund, or exchange capabilities. Corporate travel still runs on EDIFACT because most TMCs and booking tools were never designed for real-time offers or orders.
Airlines continue to pay high distribution fees for channels that deliver partial content and patchy support for what they actually need: retailing flexibility and control.
It’s like trying to stream a 4K movie through a dial-up modem. The content is ready — the pipes just can’t deliver it.
Some airlines imagine they can replace the GDS entirely by building their own global retail networks. But airlines are not Amazon. Their strength lies in moving people, not running massive, real-time retail tech stacks with thousands of engineers. The smartest carriers know this. They stay focused on delivering great travel products while partnering with modern retail platforms to manage offers, orders, and payments at scale.
Lufthansa Group, Air France–KLM, American Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Finnair, and Saudia all follow hybrid strategies — balancing GDS distribution with expanding direct and NDC aggregator connections.
GDSs built the foundation of global airline commerce. But the world they built it for no longer exists. Airlines now need flexibility, dynamic pricing, and smarter bundles — not segment fees and fare filing constraints. Until incentives align, carriers that rely solely on GDS pipes will remain stuck in the past.
The airlines that win will be those that diversify, take control of their content, and partner with platforms built for the new era of offer and order retailing.
TWAI helps airlines modernize without rebuilding from scratch. GQ Retail, GQ B2B, GQ API, and GQ Pay form one unified retail platform that supports offers, orders, and payments across every channel — even the legacy ones.
Download the TWAI State of Airline Retailing 2025 white paper to explore adoption data, cost benchmarks, and practical paths to offer and order maturity.
