Evolving Airline Retailing: My Takeaways from the IATA Airline Retailing Value Chain Forum
By Mahesh Pai, Product Director, Verteil Technologies
Last week, I had the privilege of participating in a two-day closed-door forum that brought together a diverse mix of stakeholders—airlines, TMCs, OBTs, large corporates, and travel tech providers—to discuss the evolving landscape of airline retailing. The focal point? The industry-wide transition to Offers and Orders, and how this shift is redefining roles, expectations, and infrastructure across the value chain.
As a representative of Verteil, a company that has long championed modern retailing and the NDC journey, the forum reaffirmed our vision - and validated the roadmap we’ve already been delivering on. Here are my key reflections from the discussions.
Offers & Orders: From Connectivity to Orchestration
One of the dominant themes discussed was the need to move beyond basic NDC connectivity. The conversation has evolved—from merely accessing airline APIs to enabling true retailing orchestration. What became clear is that intermediaries now require platforms that can normalize, persist, and service Offers and Orders while seamlessly supporting TMC workflows.
At Verteil, we’ve anticipated this shift early on. Our existing capabilities—persistent order stores, servicing orchestration, corporate policy integration at the point of Offer, and standardized downstream data—already align with what the industry now demands. It's no longer just about pipes; it’s about intelligent infrastructure. In this context, we’ve often thought of Verteil not merely as a connector, but as a Distribution Operating System for Offer & Order retailing.
Technology Readiness: Bridging Fragmentation
The forum highlighted varying levels of readiness across players in the ecosystem.
- Some airlines have made significant progress with Offer/Order APIs, while others are still starting out.
- TMCs face the uphill task of adapting systems built for PNRs, tickets, and EMDs.
- Corporates want transparency and personalization without sacrificing control, duty-of-care, or reconciliation.
For us at Verteil, this only reinforced the value of what we’ve already been doing—bridging these gaps through technology that normalizes fragmented workflows and simplifies complexity.
Standardization and Simplification: Work in Progress
Standardization remains a work in progress, but we’re encouraged by the momentum around IATA’s initiatives such as Order Notifications and Accounting Events.
One strong consensus from the forum was the need for a buffer—an intelligent layer that offers canonical data models and manages versioning—allowing airlines and intermediaries to focus on innovation. This mirrors Verteil’s long-held belief in acting as the “middleware that enforces sanity” while driving flexibility and innovation.
The Evolving Traveler and TMC Experience
It’s evident that traveler expectations have evolved, and so have corporate buyer requirements. The need for rich content (seat maps, ancillaries, dynamic upsells), policy-aware Offers, and clarity on fare rules is now standard.
Verteil has already been building towards this—delivering rich metadata through APIs and merchandising layers that make it easy for TMC front-ends and booking tools to surface this content in an intuitive way. This forum validated that our early investments are exactly what the market now demands.
Partnerships and New Models: New Paths Emerging
The forum also highlighted how traditional roles are dissolving:
- Airlines want more control over distribution.
- TMCs need flexibility and better tooling.
- OBTs want content depth.
- Corporates want insights, not just inventory.
This creates space for new partnerships. At Verteil, we’re already collaborating with order-native mid-office systems, enabling Order-based analytics, and offering APIs for next-gen OBT experiences. We also have SaaS-style servicing tools tailored for the modern TMC.
Final Reflection: A Collective Responsibility
What stood out most from this forum was the industry-wide recognition that no single player can lead this transformation alone. It will take alignment, shared tooling, and open collaboration.
For Verteil, this was a moment of validation. Many of the pain points, strategies, and innovations discussed during the forum are ones we’ve already anticipated and are actively addressing. It’s encouraging to see the industry catching up to the direction we’ve long believed in.
As the ecosystem rallies around Offers and Orders, Verteil remains committed—not just as an aggregator, but as a proactive enabler of modern airline retailing, helping the industry move from intention to execution.
