Travel management company Navan has heralded a new proprietary content aggregation platform as it focuses squarely on direct connections to deliver airlines' New Distribution Capability content.
The company has to date sourced NDC content by multiple routes, including direct connections with airlines, partnering with content aggregators, and integrating legacy GDSs' NDC offerings. "We've spent years learning the strengths and weaknesses of every model," said Ian Fette in a blog posted on the company's website on Monday.
He continued: "This commitment to quality recently even led us to a tough but necessary decision: turning off our GDS connection for NDC, choosing instead to focus on our direct integrations that meet our high quality standards."
Fette told BTN Europe at this week's Global Business Travel Association convention in Denver that the TMC continues to source some NDC content via an aggregator partner, for some five airlines, but direct connections are its preferred method of delivery, allowing the company to debug issues and build solutions together "in hours or days, not the months-long cycles you face with an intermediary."
"We're of the mindset that in general we want to build a high-quality direct connection. We have choices [as a TMC] when others don't. We get the best results when we build our own solution," said Fette.
He added: "We have channeled years of learning into a new, proprietary content aggregation platform, engineered from the ground up to deliver the next generation of airline retailing for business travel."
Fette said that Navan switched off its GDS NDC content in June and the company is now concentrating on direct connections in line with the "latest and most capable 24.1 NDC standard" as well as upgrading existing connections to newer NDC versions that better meet servicing requirements in complex scenarios.
"The previous generation of NDC—primarily versions 17.2, 18.1, and 18.2—had gaps that each airline solved differently, forcing us to build custom code for each carrier," said Fette. "The new 24.1 standard is far more uniform. Where individual airlines or IT providers filled in gaps, they came back together to standardize those approaches so that we all benefit from that consistency, both in quality and delivery velocity."
Fette said the company currently provides NDC content from 23 airlines, with another four in the pipeline, and has integrated a "handful" of airlines at the 24.1 standard and is "pushing other airlines who are ready to take that step."
Among its latest additions are a new direct connection with Aegean Airlines and the upgrading of its Lufthansa Group integration to service bookings via the 24.1 standard.
Asked whether the company might open up access to its content aggregation platform, Navan's VP of product design, Kate McCarthy, said it was "not in the company's plans right now… but never say never."
Around 30 percent of all air transactions handled by Navan are now NDC bookings. The TMC also says that for routine changes, the success rate for in-app self-service changes is higher for NDC bookings than it is for legacy EDIFACT bookings.
"We are fanatical about quality. We don't turn it on [a new NDC connection] until it is absolutely ready," said McCarthy. "We invest a lot of time and effort in driving the error rate down."
Fette, however, acknowledged that a multitude of direct connections can "slow things down" for the end user. "Latency affects the user experience—it's the elephant in the room—but it's solvable and we are having conversations with airlines and industry bodies like IATA about it."
Navan this week also provided details of how it is using AI to reduce friction around hotel check-in and payments. Using agentic AI, the company is automating, verifying and confirming hotel payments in advance for travelers, and also is proactively notifying hotels of late arrivals so that rooms are not released. The functionality is currently rolling out for Navan Expense customers across North America in English.
Originally published by BTN Europe.