Why NDC Alone Won’t Save Airline Retailing — and What Will

Ten years into the NDC journey, airlines are still tangled in legacy workflows and patchwork fixes. The industry keeps saying “NDC will modernize everything,” but the truth is more complicated.

Let’s set the record straight: New Distribution Capability (NDC) is a messaging standard, not a retail platform.

It was designed to help airlines push richer offers and dynamic prices to partners like OTAs and travel agents. But in practice, it has been a fragmented standard from the start, with constant schema updates, little backward compatibility, and inconsistent rollouts. Airlines have new pipes for sending offers, but they are still bolted onto old systems that fail to deliver the seamless experience travelers expect.

The Big Misconception: Messaging Standard ≠ Retail Solution

One of the biggest myths in airline retailing today is that just having NDC makes an airline a modern retailer. It doesn’t.

Think of it like this: NDC is the equivalent of buying better delivery trucks. But that alone does not make you Amazon.

Amazon didn’t dominate retail because it figured out how to ship boxes. It won by building an end-to-end machine: smart recommendations, an intuitive storefront, effortless fulfillment and returns, and seamless payments and fraud protection.

NDC lets airlines send dynamic content to partners, but without a full retail stack behind it, it is just data in motion. The real value only happens when the pipes feed into a system that handles real-time offers, smart bundling, consistent servicing, and payments at scale.

For procurement and distribution leaders, this means you cannot equate API connectivity with true modernization. The infrastructure behind those connections matters just as much as the standard itself.

What NDC Actually Enables

When used well, NDC helps airlines break free from static fare filing and rigid buckets:

• More control over pricing. Airlines can stop relying on locked-in filed fares. Prices can adjust in real time based on demand, traveler context, or competitive moves (IATA, ARC 2025).
• Dynamic, personalized deals. Host-based pricing frees airlines from one-size-fits-all fare buckets. Relevant offers can be built and pushed instantly.
• Smarter bundles and branding. Branded fares, ancillaries, and packages become easier to sell, giving travelers more choice and clearer value.

These capabilities matter because they impact agency workflows, corporate procurement efficiency, and ultimately traveler satisfaction. NDC provides the foundation to act like retailers, but that is only part of the solution.

What NDC Doesn’t Do

Here is the part many overlook: NDC alone doesn’t fix the hardest parts of modern retailing.

• Servicing. Reissuing a multi-airline ticket still often breaks down. Refunds and disruptions get stuck when partners don’t have consistent order management. Agents spend hours manually patching gaps.
• Personalization at scale. A few carriers such as American Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa Group, Qantas, and Finnair are ahead. But most of the 20 percent of bookings that touch NDC remain static or semi-dynamic (T2RL, 2025). Real-time personalization is still rare.
• Payments. Loyalty redemptions, multi-currency support, split payments, and fraud prevention all require orchestration beyond NDC’s scope. For global procurement teams, these are critical functions.
• Interlining and code shares. GDSs still outperform NDC for coordinating seats, bags, and disruption handling. Without reliable interline workflows, travelers can face mismatched policies mid-journey while airline and agency teams scramble to fix the fallout.

For global executives balancing budgets, contracts, and supplier negotiations, these gaps add friction and cost.

The Takeaway: Build Platforms, Not Just Better Pipes

NDC is like upgrading plumbing. But if the taps, valves, and heater don’t work together, the shower is still cold.

Modern airline retailing is the same. NDC and traditional GDS or EDIFACT content must co-exist for years. Corporate bookings, multi-airline trips, and legacy workflows still drive huge volumes. Airlines cannot shut them off overnight.

The winners will do three things:

• Stop treating NDC as a magic fix.
• Connect old and new systems through one retail platform that manages offers, orders, payments, and servicing at scale.
• Build for resilience instead of patching together one-off fixes that drain time and money.

Airlines that pair strategy with the right platform partners will thrive. Messaging standards alone do not sell tickets. Consistent retail experiences, delivered globally and integrated with procurement ecosystems, do. A critical piece of this evolution is adopting modern Offer and Order Management Systems (OOMS). These platforms allow airlines to move beyond legacy PNR and ticketing structures, enabling end-to-end order control, consistent servicing, and true retail flexibility. Without a robust OOMS strategy, even the best NDC connectivity will fall short of delivering on the promise of modern retailing.

Want the Full Picture?

Much of what’s covered here comes from our research in the TWAI: State of Airline Retailing 2025 Industry Brief. It breaks down what’s working, what’s not, and what airlines really need to succeed with NDC and modern retailing.

Download the full industry briefing [here].

Ready to Move Beyond the NDC Myth?

At TWAI, we help airlines turn the promise of NDC into retail results. Our modular platforms are designed to align with both airline distribution strategies and corporate procurement needs:

• GQ Retail: A modern B2C storefront with ancillaries, branded bundles, and loyalty built in.
• GQ B2B: Direct connections with agencies and corporate buyers, bypassing GDS roadblocks and aligning with global enterprise procurement.
• GQ API: Developer-ready orchestration for shopping, booking, orders, and servicing across markets.
• GQ Pay: A payments engine that handles cards, wallets, BNPL, loyalty points, fraud checks, and multi-currency flows.

NDC alone will not transform airline retailing. But the right platform, built for both commercial efficiency and global distribution reach, will.

Let’s make modern retailing real, together. See how TWAI bridges the NDC gap. Contact us to speak with one of our experts.