Unisys Partners with JR Technologies to Advance New Distribution Capability (NDC) Solution for Airlines

BLUE BELL, Pa., April 11, 2017

Developed by The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the NDC defines a new data transmission standard to address the industry's current distribution limitations, including product differentiation and time-to-market, access to full, rich air content and a transparent shopping experience. The Unisys-JRT approach combines the two solutions required for successful airline adoption of NDC: the ability to create, communicate and manage product offering (OfMS) and, once an offer is selected, a solution to manage the order (AirCore Order Manager).

"We are thrilled to be working with Unisys to advance airline NDC efforts," said George Khairallah, President of JR Technologies. "As airlines experiment more and more with NDC offer initiatives, they see the need for order management to be designed for robust full offer servicing rather than a generic retail order storage and tracking design. We're most impressed with the Unisys AirCore Order Manager's versatility, state-of-the-art design and ability to immediately address full customer-centric order servicing on top of any airline's passenger services system. Combined, we offer a truly collaborative retail platform." 

"JR Technologies was an obvious choice as our NDC partner," said Dheeraj Kohli, vice president and global head of Travel and Transportation for Unisys. "The first to be NDC-certified, JRT has also remained the thought leader in understanding the nuances and requirements of achieving a true airline retail environment. Airline differentiation and increased revenue are the driving factors for changes in channel distribution and JRT is clearly at the forefront of helping airlines make that happen. The key objective of our joint approach is to remove the barriers of airline complexity and provide instantaneous insight into customer demand, preferences and travel purpose to drive new revenue sources, distribution control and innovation."

OfMS combines comprehensive shopping and merchandizing capabilities enabling airlines to present customized, rich content offers via every sales channel. Bundling and un-bundling of fares and ancillaries are optimized by applying sophisticated business rules, providing a wide range of products and services to offer, and then order through integration with AirCore's Order Manager system.

Unisys AirCore Order Manager provides the complete master source of all passenger travel and servicing information and delivers a full omni-channel retail environment of master order control and servicing. Apart from processing standard IATA NDC messages, AirCore's Order Manager communicates with an airline's passenger services system through industry standard interfaces. This capability permits cost-efficient, bi-directional and real-time synchronization of orders and passenger name records (PNR). 

Unisys has more than 45 years of experience providing advanced, critical IT solutions to the aviation industry. Eighteen of the top 25 airlines depend on Unisys solutions, and 20 percent of global passenger boardings are processed through Unisys solutions.