Amadeus: Amex GBT Books American Airlines NDC Fares via New API

American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has processed live bookings using American Airlines’ NDC-enabled content through the new Amadeus Travel API, reaching a “milestone in travel retailing”, Amadeus announced at the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) 2019 Convention, held recently in Chicago.

According to Amadeus, the companies are aiming to exercise the API’s full functionality of end-to-end booking flow and servicing, including cancellations, exchanges and ancillaries, when capabilities reach scalable production levels.

“We’ve now reached another critical milestone with two travel industry giants,” said Gianni Pisanello, Vice President of the NDC [X] program at Amadeus.

“As we continue to progress toward delivering on our commitment to make NDC work for all stakeholders, we believe that standardization across the industry is the single most important factor in easing implementation, broadening adoption, and creating a technical environment where airlines can explore new types of content, and travelers can readily consume it,” he added.

American will look to gain full benefit of the Amadeus Travel Platform through which travel companies like American Express Global Business Travel can provide access to the world’s most comprehensive and robust travel content.

“American is focused on offering our customers experiences that are unique to us and to them, and NDC puts us on that path,” said Alison Taylor, Senior Vice President of Global Sales & Distribution at American Airlines.

The ability to drive end-to-end workflow for NDC-enabled content from American demonstrates the importance and value of industry standards that are required to reach the point where travel agencies can shop, book and service NDC bookings at scale and match current performance levels.

“We are delivering solutions that will enhance access to content, improve transparency and shopping, and enable servicing capabilities with an end goal to drive value for its customers and partners,” said Michael Qualantone, Executive Vice President of Global Supplier Relations for American Express Global Business Travel.