TMC Monthly Lunch and Learn

Question

Answer

Is there any discussion on connecting to Amadeus NDCx platform?

As mentioned - we are looking to begin work on Amadeus Master Price including NDC in H2 2024. More details on actual timing to follow before end of Q2 2024

does Deem has an ability to hide Basic economy fare through display configurations?

yes - we can exclude

AA how are multi carrier bookings managed and displayed? AA has to be on their own PNR's from my understanding and can not be mixed with other carriers or segment types.

Complex question Kellie.. as Mark mentioned today you cannot mix with other carriers. this is a major limitation of NDC in the industry

Confirming that currently NDC is available for New Deem on Travelport?

Yes! it is available on both Travelport+ (1G) and Sabre

So Deem user will be able to hold NDC flights in Deem? Like Edifact fare?

Right now - no. but we have NDC hold targeted for Q3.. we think we will need to bring that up

In the de-dupe process, are you looking at each branded fare separately? For example, on a single flight might you see NDC Basic Economy, Edifact Main Cabin, and NDC Main Plus?

these would all be displayed' we dedupe on same RBD + price favoring the EDIFACT fare today

Can NDC or Edifact tickets have approvals or they cannot since they are a direct connect?

Today no, but we have the ability to hold in our roadmap. Today that functionality is in our roadmap for Q3 but we believe we will need to bring this up to Q2 given the need for TMC's to process the booking before ticketing.

Will a booking be able to put on "hold" for NDC like you are able to do in current Deem?

Today no, but we have the ability to hold in our roadmap which will then allow the TMC to fufill. Today that functionality is in our roadmap for Q3 but we believe we will need to bring this up to Q2 given the need for TMC's to process the booking before ticketing.

You mentioned that the tie goes to EDIFACT when NDC and EDIFACT are tied. Will this be configurable later? If we are concerned about meeting the AA minimums I think we would need this option.

Great question and we agree.. we know that the TMC's will want to decide on the preference themselves. Today this is not in our roadmap but the TMC can preference this at the GDS level we believe to do this now.

Will the NDC information be available for Apollo users in New Deem or does TravelFusion still need to be used?

Apollo is TF only

Our clients require strict policy requirements. How do we meet the requirement of displaying NDC, but stop the booking if not in policy?

our goal is for air policy will apply to EDIFACT and NDC in same way

will they be able to exchange and cancel NDC reservations?

Answered as part of the roadmap - modify will be available for TP+ in June and Sabre in July

We've been told by Sabre that in order to restrict Basic economy it actually needs to be turned off at the PCC level. We haven't been able to turn it off in any other OBT. Is new Deem different?

if you want to switch it of for the TMC as a whole, it needs to be at PCC level but in Deem we can remove at the OBT/Traveler level

Since we can't combine NDC and Edifact in the same itinerary, if the traveler selects NDC on the outbound, can you block them from selecting Edifact on the return?

We do - and we try to do it. but this limits options.. this will be something we will have to think further on

regarding NDC auto fulfill being turned off, We as a TMC have a special routine designed to auto ticket NDC - we are in testing but it would basically queue the record to our NDC auto ticketing queue and run a routine that Complete wrote that tickets the NDC booking

We understand your use case and are working to support that ..

Will Air Canada NDC be offered once it's live in Sabre?

Yes - we are waiting on Sabre to release it but our aim is that we will priorities AC as soon as the GDS' have it available

Time line for Amadeus?

We aim to start to work on Amadeus in H2 but I don't have the roadmap / timeline yet; we will share this be end of Q2

For Sabre, when is the anticipated rollout for client usage?

We are in Alpha today and you can go live if you need to but we would recommend to switch on for your own testing now, and wait to Beta end of Q2 before switching clients on

Question

Answer

Hi Kyle. Did Deem send out notifications about the issue you discussed. Me and my team did not receive any and only learned about it from a client who had hotel issues. (Scott Daube, AmexGBT)

Scott - so great to see you here. I am going to repeat this to the broader audience. But, we did have some comms go out - closed out by an apology a couple days after the incident. If you didn't get that, I want to ensure we have you on the right list. Can you get with us to ensure we have you on the list?

Update: You may want your IT Department to add @statusdashboard.com to your whitelist.

You can also set up notifications via text messaging.

When this reaches 100% "Parity" old Deem vs. New Deem. Does that apply to any/all GDS? For example Apollo?

It means that the capability that is available on Classic Deem will be available on New Deem. There are still differences between various GDS capabilities either because they don't all support the same functions or those have not been built out yet even on Classic

Is the message to toggle between classic and new deem customizable?

Yes - it is customizable
Clarification: Dynamic Site Messaging can be used to create and customize messaging, for both classic and new Deem.

Will Deem fulfill the NDC order when the traveler completes the booking or will the TMC need to fulfil the order?

For AA and UA NDC bookings are ticketed by the carriers. These transactions will appear on the TMC's ARC report as agency owned tickets. 

When will Deem have government per diems for hotels? Thank you.

It will be either late 2024 but likely will fall into 2025. I know this is important but NDC overrode a lot of the roadmap

Is there a link to the IOS natural language video?

We will share the video!
Update: Videos have been added to the Training Lunch & learn Wiki

And if you are interested we will be looking for some folks to be part of the focus group for feedback

Following up on the NDC fulfillment question, some OBTs are fulfilling the NDC order while others leave it up to the TMC to fulfill the order. Which option is Deem taking?

With airlines that offer neutral ticketing, there can be an extra step however with UA and AA, the tickets will be issued real time by the airline and reported against the ARC/BSP. So for AA/UA only additional step will be invoicing on the TMC side as needed.