American Airlines' removal of many discount fares from legacy GDSs early last month caused a commotion in the travel industry that is only now beginning to die down.

But analysts say that the hullabaloo over American is distracting from the bigger picture, which is that as more airlines begin leaning heavily on NDC-enabled distribution technology, flight shopping is becoming more difficult for travel advisors.

Life has become far more complicated for travel agencies and the counselors who are using and working with this content, because they have to do a lot more work now with some airlines to find what may be the best fares, said Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research Group.

Norm Rose, senior technology analyst for Phocuswright and president of Travel Tech Consulting, said that the increased complexity speaks to a more sweeping evolution that is occurring in airline distribution.

To me the biggest change that has happened is the GDS is no longer the center of the world, and those who believe it is still the center of the world are going to be left behind, Rose said.

Illustrative of the increasingly choppy waters that travel agents must now navigate to book air is the distinct approaches to NDC that the Big Four U.S. airlines are pursuing.

American is the alpha of the party, having not only developed NDC capabilities that are now deployed in Sabre, Amadeus and Travelport but having also taken an aggressive posture by removing approximately 40% of its content from legacy, Edifact-supported GDSs.

Read the full article at travelweekly.com