The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had announced that Click Travel and British Airways have been selected to trial its new B2B settlement system.
IATA, which represents and serves the airline industry, has created the “Settlement with Orders” solution to simplify the management of payments. The system is an extension to and uses IATA’s NDC New Distribution Capability, which allows the distribution of airfares and ancillaries through third parties.
“Settlement with Orders will automate what is currently an overly-complicated and manual process for all booking agents, meaning any changes, payments, or refunds can be auctioned much faster — which will only be a good thing for customers,” Click Travel’s chief product engineer Robin Smith said, according to Buying Business Travel. “The pioneering work we did with IATA on NDC meant we were perfectly positioned to assist with this trial; we have our own engineering team and booking platform, so we’re ready and able to adapt our systems in support of innovative plans like this.”
“Settlement with Orders will improve the billing and settlement process for both airlines and TMCs. It will simplify the IT infrastructure, remove process duplication and enable automatic reconciliation. We are pleased to be working on this pilot with Click Travel and IATA,” added Ian Luck, head of distribution at BA.
An offline pilot is expected to start in October and November, with a live trial planned to start in the second quarter of 2020.
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