Finnair reaches the next level in NDC readiness: certified by IATA on NDC@scale
Finnair is actively working towards digitalizing and transforming its product distribution to travel agents and other 3rd parties. As one of the IATA NDC Leaderboard airlines, Finnair is actively participating in the IATA NDC program and developing the standard further. The aim is to enable better, richer content to our indirect channel, creating a similar retailing and customer experience as offered through finnair.com and other digital touchpoints. Furthermore, the aim is to streamline the after booking servicing capabilities such as changing flights; something that has demonstrated its importance during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
On September 28th 2020 Finnair reached another milestone on its NDC journey and became IATA certified on NDC @scale level. IATA certifies airlines on NDC based on the functionalities available and the ability to support a scalable transformation. Previously Finnair was IATA NDC level 4 certified meaning that agents were able to search, book, pay and service all Finnair flights and ancillaries via a NDC connection. @scale level demonstrates that the airline has technical and organizational capabilities to scale NDC distribution. Technical capabilities are measured for example by the availability of the systems and the response times. Organizational capabilities include commercial and technical support available for partners as well as documentation and for example a developer portal.
More information about Finnair NDC Partner Program can be found here.
With NDC travel agents can access Finnair content (flights and ancillaries) directly or via an aggregator. Building a direct connection with Finnair requires the agent to have dedicated IT resources for the integration project and is mainly recommended for larger agents. The second option is to connect via an aggregator, which could be a GDS or a dedicated NDC content aggregator. No specific technical development is required from an agency to access Finnair content via these aggregators.
More information on the IATA NDC Program available on IATAs website.
More information on the and a full list of requirements NDC @scale certification.