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A new retailing mentality

How British Airways meets customers wherever they shop, using Travelport+
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Customer: British Airways
Channel: Supplier
Product: Travelport+

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The customer:

British Airways

The ask:

Enhance distribution in the agency channel

The solution:

Travelport+ for modern travel retailing

A BIT ABOUT BRITISH AIRWAYS

British Airways is a global airline that brings people, places, and diverse cultures closer together. For more than 100 years, it’s been helping travelers see the world. And now, the airline itself is on a new journey to even better content distribution, aided by modern agency retailing and Travelport+.

 

A CUSTOMER-FIRST APPROACH TO DISTRIBUTION

“Every customer matters,” says Sam Robinson, Head of Distribution at British Airways. We’re chatting with Sam at British Airways’ international headquarters at Waterside, right beside London’s Heathrow Airport.

This is a place where big ideas are born and brought to life — ideas that prioritize customers in everything the airline does, both strategically and operationally. Today, Sam is sitting down with us to talk more about British Airways’ customer-first approach to distribution, and the value that travel agencies offer to the airline.

“Our customers use agencies for lots of reasons — for help finding the right trip, comparing options, and for business travel. So, it’s really important for us to deliver our offers effectively to those shoppers. That’s part of how we prioritize traveler needs, always”.

Earlier this year, Travolution reported that British Airways is committed to enhancing NDC for agencies. This strategy stood out compared to other airlines that were, at the time, restricting NDC content to agencies. British Airways’ approach has since clearly proven to be the stronger approach.

“We want to provide a retailing experience that reflects what we can offer on the direct channel. We want our content and our flights to be available where they want to purchase it. That’s why we work with Travelport — it helps our agency customers easily connect to NDC.”

 

TRAVEL AGENCIES AT A CROSSROADS

“If you think about it, travel agencies today are kind of at a crossroads,” says Sam. “There’s all this new content, there’s new technology, new distribution capability, and they need to figure out how to navigate all this. Plus there’s a whole bunch of new customer expectations when it comes to retailing — and that’s not just in the airline industry.”

He continues, “We need to change our technology to be able to deliver on these new expectations. Part of our £7 billion transformation program is enhancing our commercial architecture and using technology to really put travelers at the forefront of everything we do”.

“Travel agencies drive significant value, not just for us as a business, but also for the traveler,” he continues. “Naturally, they help us reach more business travelers, who have really complex needs. But they also offer more support for leisure customers and know what makes a great experience for them. That’s why they’re a critical part of the booking ecosystem”.

DELIVERING MORE VALUE THROUGH NDC

Clearly, NDC is a fundamental part of modern retailing for British Airways. We asked Sam to tell us a little bit about what this content offers to travel agencies. He replies, “Ultimately, it’s about being able to do more for the traveler. Giving them more transparency, more choice, more customization, and the best trip combinations enriched with more detail to help make a better final decision”.

“Travelport+ helps us deliver by showing our NDC offers in a way that’s clean and easy to understand. Having that NDC capability really enables us to move toward that retailing mentality.”

“If you think about how we used to sell flights, previously it was very schedule driven, not product driven. NDC allows us to distribute the richer products and richer content that our customers expect from us. You can still search for that schedule, of course. But we can now retail various different products too.”

The challenge for travel agencies is getting all content sources (e.g. NDC, EDIFACT, Low Cost Carrier, Hotel, Car, and Rail) in one convenient place. And when it comes to selling multi-source content, search results can appear several times on screen, which is really overwhelming to navigate. Sam adds, “By integrating into our NDC APIs, Travelport helps us distribute content to agencies and their customers in a simple, clean way. It helps agencies manage the huge amount of content that’s out there, aggregates it all into one place, and helps simplify complex servicing.”

WORKING WITH TRAVELPORT+ FOR MODERN RETAILING

But, he adds, “Modern retailing is about more than just NDC. It’s about meeting expectations — old and new. And it’s about offering the same kind of shopping experiences customers get when interacting with digital businesses in other industries. We need to go beyond not just what we want to deliver, but what customers want to see”.

“We’re all going on the same technology transformation journey. At British Airways, these huge changes that we’re undertaking in our commercial architecture are creating more ways to distribute better content. But we’re not alone, everyone in the travel value chain is on that same journey. As a technology partner, Travelport helps make things simpler for us all.”

He added, “We’ve got a really diverse team and it’s a key advantage in making NDC successful for us. Culturally, it’s really important for us to work with a partner that shares the same ethos of progressing big change through teamwork.”

Looking ahead, there’s plenty more to be achieved together too. “We’re really excited about the next steps for us working with Travelport, particularly in the area of servicing. Agents will start to see more personalization, more bundles, and that’s what NDC enables us to distribute to our customers.” He concludes “NDC and modern retailing are a journey. We’re on that journey together. Really this is just the start. We’re moving toward a whole new world where we can retail better”.

“Modern retailing is about more than just NDC. It’s about meeting our customers’ needs — wherever they’re booking.”
Sam Robinson,
Head of Distribution, British Airways
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