TECHNOLOGY Competing priorities and limited funds hinder development


to become more and more important for the airline to ‘own’ the customer in more and more detail. “It’s going to be costly to make the


process of passing on all a customer’s details seamless. Therefore, airlines will push to own more of that space. NDC hasn’t kept pace with hyper-personalisation. The solution isn’t fit for purpose at present and it’s not likely to be fit for purpose tomorrow.”


‘MODERN RETAILING’ To move to ‘modern retailing’, carriers need to offer customers sophisticated apps. But development of concierge-like apps has been “limited” in the past year, according to Gauld, who noted: “I’ve seen many RFPs [requests for proposals] by airlines wanting to modernise their mobile apps, but it has not moved on as much as we thought. “It will come because it’s linked to


airlines becoming fully-fledged retailers while passengers are on board, certainly on long-haul flights. Airlines are looking at the onboard experience and how to sell more, whether that is duty-free or another holiday or goods you receive


FIGURE 46:


NEW DISTRIBUTION CAPABILITY (NDC) IMPLEMENTATION Corporate travel buyers


No challenges with NDC


Don’t know


Too early


6% 5% 10% 11% 19% 16% 37% 12%


implemented NDC


Not


challenges with NDC


Many


Challenges with NDC


challenges with NDC


Many 36%


challenges with NDC


Some Source: GBTA survey November 2024 Base: 895 GBTA members


Few challenges with NDC


Too early


Not made NDC


available 9% 5% Don’t know 6% 6%


No challenges with NDC


22%


challenges with NDC


Few TMCs, GDSs and online booking tools


There is still a lot of work to do at some airlines [to move off legacy systems]


at your destination or at home. To do that, airlines need a concierge-type app that allows all that to be integrated.” But far from being in the forefront


of technology development, many network carriers still have major work to do to move off legacy systems. Gauld said: “There is still a lot of


work to do at some airlines. A few have selected cloud providers and are looking to migrate. Others are looking at the best applications to transfer or to dump their legacy estate in the cloud and modernise it later. But the process seems to be taking far too long.” He explained: “When [big technology]


programmes aren’t going well, there are generally two key reasons. One is a lack of integration and understanding of how data flows between systems. The other is not knowing where the data is mastered – who owns it, where the data record is mastered and how it is distributed across the network.” Data mastering is the process by which a data source record is linked or merged with another data record. Gauld noted: “A lot of stuff in these


NDC implementation remains a work in progress (Figure 46)


systems is ‘hand-cranked’ code built up over 20-30 years and is undocumented. It takes a long time to unpick that, move it all into the cloud and modernise it.” AI could help somewhat in this, he


suggested, but added: “You need to tell AI where to look and what it’s looking for. Once you understand what is there, you could use AI to modernise it. AI could take you some of the way but not all the way.” The sector also faces the “constant


need to keep evolving to stay one step ahead of cyberattacks”, he said. “Every week you hear of someone being attacked from somewhere, not just in aviation. It’s a constant threat. “Aviation is one of the leading sectors


for understanding risks. It’s about keeping aircraft in the air and fundamentally safety first, so cybersecurity is top of the list. Airlines have been pretty good at protecting themselves, but no one is going to be 100% impregnable. It’s always going to be a threat.”


28 Travel Weekly Insight Report 2025


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