Singapore Airlines has increased its GDS distribution fees and widened the price differential between NDC-enabled fares and tickets purchased via legacy GDS technology.
The airline will be withdrawing some discounted fares from existing GDS channels starting August 1.
Singapore’s latest changes took effect on June 1. As outlined in a circular sent to agency partners on April 27, GDS distribution rates increased from $15 to $20 on that date. Singapore also doubled the rate discount for NDC bookings from 3% lower to 6% compared to existing GDS bookings. For corporate rates, the difference jumped to 7%.
The sales circular was posted to LinkedIn by Cory Garner, a former NDC strategist at American who now runs the consulting firm Garner. Travel Weekly’s sister publication The Beat reported on Garner’s post on Wednesday.
“If you look at it on a curve, SQ may be one of the most aggressive carriers in terms of distribution strategy,” Garner wrote, referring to Singapore Airlines' IATA designation code.
Singapore has also expanded the rollout of continuous pricing from 1 June. This increases the number of price points and rates available through NDC-enabled channels, further differentiating these channels from traditional GDSs.
“Continuous pricing allows customers to see more frequent but smaller fare changes based on supply, demand and real-time market conditions, allowing us to offer more competitive fare offers,” the airline said in a statement.
The next major push under Singapore’s KrisConnect NDC program will take place on August 1, when the airline will remove K and V fare categories from existing GDSs. According to Garner, these discounted economy fare categories are what airlines market as Lite, which is a version of basic economy.
Singapore has direct connections to the three major GDSs and provides NDC content through NDC aggregators. The airline also maintains the Agent360 website, which is available to all travel agents and requires no integration or IT investment.
Singapore said in the circular that it would extend “full support” to travel advisors, including providing trained helpdesk staff to help them navigate the transition to NDC.
“SIA has developed a comprehensive set of service capabilities to facilitate seamless customer bookings and will continue to work with our broker partners to make these capabilities available on their platforms,” the airline said.
The airline highlighted in a statement the content offerings available through its NDC program, which include access to new family and ancillary products, as well as benefits tailored specifically to customers or companies.
