Verteil Technologies, the Kochi-based travel start-up, has facilitated an IATA-accredited travel agency to carry out first “live direct connect booking” through IATA’s NDC specification on the British Airways flight via Verteil Direct Connect, a newly developed platform.

The Verteil-enabled Magellan Travel issued a ticket on British Airways by connecting directly with the airline using NDC (new distribution capability) transaction on the Chennai- London route. With this, the Chennai-based firm has become the first travel agency in India to take advantage of the offers coming directly from British Airways.

At present, travellers get only seat and fare options when booking a flight using a travel agency or OTA. With direct connect, they can finally get access to personalised offers, real-time fares, full suite of ancillary products and services like priority check-in, variety of meal options etc., from the airline directly in the indirect sales channels, said Jerrin Jos, Founder & CEO, Verteil Technologies.

Additional fee

Several international airlines such as British Airways, Lufthansa and Air France have announced additional fees for any bookings made through legacy indirect distribution channels. These fees are waived for tickets booked via an NDC direct connect channel. .

IAAI, one of the major IATA travel agency consortia in India, had recently signed a contract with Verteil to leverage its direct connect platform for their member agencies to connect directly with airlines.

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