Serko has partnered with Qantas to achieve NDC Level 3 Certification
Serko Limited (NZX:SKO) announced today that Zeno, its next generation technology for travel and expense management, has been granted Level 3 Certification by IATA for native support of NDC with Qantas. Zeno becomes the first travel and expense platform globally to achieve this level of accreditation.
NDC (New Distribution Capability) is a travel industry-supported program launched by IATA for the development and market adoption of a new, XML-based data transmission standard that enhances the capability of communications between airlines, travel agents and aggregators.
Yanik Hoyles, Director of the NDC Program at IATA said, "Serko has produced the next generation corporate online booking solution with rich content from a certified NDC airline. We're excited that airlines and IT providers are working together in their NDC implementations, leading the way to enhancing the choice and overall customer experience in the corporate environment."
CEO of Serko Darrin Grafton said that achieving Level 3 Certification with Qantas is just the first step, with Zeno's connection to the new Qantas Distribution Platform (QDP) enabling Serko to provide richer content which is valuable to the customer journey such as Frequent Flyer information based on tier status, and detailed product descriptions. "Serko has a clear development roadmap to continue to evolve Zeno's NDC capabilities to deliver an end-to-end solution as further releases are made via the QDP."
"We're excited that Qantas and Serko have entered into a strategic partnership to deliver innovation for corporate customers and agency partners. With airlines evolving their technology capabilities there is so much potential to build a richer, more personalised experience for our mutual customers." commented Mr Grafton.
Zeno is built around the philosophy of "no more compromise", ensuring the traveller, travel manager, supplier and TMC all benefit from the changes this new technology enables. To this extent Serko has committed to making sure offline and online bookings can be managed easily through the TMC channel along with the commitment to support NDC via direct connection or Global Distribution System (GDS).