Air Serbia among the first in South East Europe to receive an IATA NDC certificate
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has certified Air Serbia for Level 2 of NDC certification (New Distribution Capability), ranking it among the world's leading airlines that have adapted its distribution system to modern communication methods. Air Serbia is among the first airlines in South East Europe with Level 2 NDC certification and as confirmed by IATA the first in the world with the newest 19.2 standard version that classifies the product distribution capabilities. Thanks to this standard, as part of the pilot project, from next year Air Serbia will offer a portal as a platform for distribution of its product, which includes tickets and all additional services before, during and after flight. The NDC standard enables our company to offer its product in an increasingly demanding market in the right way.
"Today, an airline product has become a commodity, so we need to be prepared to change our approach to customers and tailor our offering product to commercial and merchandising principles, while listening to direct sales experiences. That is why this standard and everything that follows it in our future communication with everyone who sells our tickets is of great importance for Air Serbia", said Air Serbia GM Commercial and Strategy Jiri Marek.
The NDC standard (New Distribution Capability) brings together 79 of the world's leading airlines, enabling them to adequately transform and adapt ways of offering their product on the market. This program is supported by numerous entities in the travel and IT industry, initiated by IATA to develop and adopt a new standard for data transfer on the market based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), which defines a set of rules for communication across modern devices and means. IATA states they provide the only official industry certification program in support of the New Distribution Capability (NDC) standard, the NDC Certification Program:
"On 17 December 2019, Joint Stock Company for Air Traffic Air SERBIA, Belgrade was granted "NDC Certification" Level 2 status, under the NDC Certification Program. This status proves that Joint Stock Company for Air Traffic Air SERBIA, Belgrade uses Offer management messages whose schemas are compliant with the standard NDC message schema, version 19.2."
The NDC standard enhances communication capabilities between airlines on the one hand and all other interested parties on the other, and allows the airline to offer its services to a wider audience with significantly better data quality.