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Delta, United, British Airways, Finnair and LATAM have joined NDC Exchange, a marketplace for airline product sales that is supported by IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC).

Those carriers will join Air Canada, which became the first airline on the exchange in August. Established a year ago by aviation IT firm SITA and by ATPCO, the airline-owned corporation that collects and distributes fare data, NDC Exchange is a marketplace that centralizes direct connections between airlines and travel agencies. As such it spares travel agencies the expense of developing direct connections for each airline they wish to work with outside the GDS channel.

The marketplace is especially useful for the purchase of ancillary products, such as bag fees and bundled fares, which still remain largely unavailable through the GDSs.

It also enables the cross-selling of ancillary services between airlines in cases when a traveler will fly on more than one carrier.

Source: travelweekly.com