Travelport, a global technology company that powers travel bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide, announced that it has renewed its multi-year agreement with United Airlines, the largest airline in the world as measured by available seat miles. As part of the agreement, Travelport will continue to provide travel agencies around the world real-time access to United’s wide selection of travel content, products, and services.
Travelport will also continue to collaborate closely with the carrier to support United’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) initiatives and deliver a world-class, modern travel retail experience. Simplified access to United’s NDC content and servicing capabilities launched several months ago with a successful early adopter program and is anticipated to be available to all of Travelport’s agency customers in August. With this extended rollout, Travelport-connected agencies will be able to easily search, compare and book United’s NDC offers, as well as service NDC bookings, including modifications and cancellations.
While all Travelport customers will have access to United’s NDC content, agents using Travelport+ will be able to access a wide range of United’s rich content, fares, and unique offerings all in one place, enhanced by the Content Curation Layer (CCL). This Travelport+ feature minimizes manual tasks using powerful artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) capabilities to provide agents and travelers a more modern retailing experience with faster search responses, more relevant results, and greater accuracy.
“We’re laser-focused on modern retailing and making new content sources, like NDC, easier for travel agents. Our partnership with United Airlines provides a streamlined booking experience with simplified access to United’s dynamic offers and ancillaries to our agency network anytime, anywhere,” said Jason Clarke, Chief Commercial Officer, Travel Partners at Travelport. “Our NDC solution is designed to support travel retailers with complete end-to-end servicing that goes beyond the booking process, allowing agents to easily manage trip changes on the go while offering superior levels of service to their travelers.”
Travelport’s NDC content and servicing solution for United is anticipated to first become available to all agency customers located across the US and the EMEA region in August, with access for agency customers located in countries across Latin America and the rest of the world to follow in the coming weeks.
