In case we encounter any unexpected turbulence.” That familiar phrase, repeated in every preflight safety announcement, could be just as apt for the uncertainty of corporate negotiations around air travel these days. As airlines replace the ABCs (and Fs and Ys) of fixed fare buckets with continuous pricing, NDC offerings and direct connect models continue to gather steam. Faced with mysterious demand algorithms and hard-to-predict booking models, the big question for travel managers is, what’s the best path toward more visibility into air spend?
“As airlines move toward continuous pricing, expand NDC distribution and continue to figure out how to merchandise, bundle and unbundle their products, managed travel programs are operating in a more dynamic and less predictable air marketplace,” says Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel at SAP Concur.
Airlines have done an excellent job of decommoditizing their product, Sultan says. Where buyers once compared a single fare within each cabin, they now face multiple fare types within the same cabin, each with different rules around refunds, exchanges, mileage accrual, seat selection, baggage and priority services.
“The technology has evolved to show far more attributes than a simple fare that’s easily compared across airlines,” Sultan noted. As a result, true apples-to-apples comparisons are far more difficult. And conventional concepts such as “lowest logical fare” – never a very well-defined notion at the best of times – further lose clarity when the products themselves are fundamentally different.
“Legacy pricing is giving way to pricing that changes in real time with different attributes bundled, creating a myriad of differentiated content,” Sultan says. This can make forecasting, policy compliance and unused ticket tracking more complex if programs rely on legacy processes. At the same time, many managed travel policies and reporting frameworks have not fully adapted to this new retailing model.
This shift raises the bar for travel managers, Sultan adds. “Beyond supplier negotiations, there’s a growing need for clear insight into what was offered and what was booked,” he says. “When booking and servicing process are not fully connected, those moments can quickly expose gaps.”
Paige Blunt, senior manager of Direct Connect and ONE Order at ARC, says that travel buyers and managers need to embrace the shift to dynamic pricing. “While NDC and continuous pricing make determining the lowest logical fare more difficult, they also can present the lowest possible airfare price based on booking patterns.” she notes.
The fact that this has been an evolution rather than an abrupt change may have given some the impression that adaptation can be deferred. The industry is now at the point, though, that this shift is making NDC a non-negotiable for any effectively managed travel program, says Dane Molter, senior vice president of travel marketplace at Navan.
“The era of relying on a single legacy model is over, as widening content gaps across more airlines are driving real urgency on the buyer side to ensure they have access to the best fares and options,” Molter advises. “But this evolution extends far beyond just spend; we’re seeing airlines with mature NDC programs lean into newer APIs to unlock superior capabilities that create a smoother traveler experience, especially in post-booking servicing.”
Greeley Koch, director of travel services at Acquis Consulting, says that with this evolution comes the need to make structural adjustments, moving program expectations away from legacy thinking.
“Managed travel was built on control,” Koch says. “Control the channel, the suppliers and compliance, with the understanding that the approved ecosystem delivered the best value.” But the new models of continuous pricing and NDC are eroding that premise. “Fare gaps across channels are becoming more frequent and more material.” When a travel manager sees a difference of $1,800 on a business class ticket outside the approved channel, the issue is no longer a technical problem – it’s a credibility challenge.
Koch suggests that a forward-looking response is not tighter control, but rather structural change. Programs will need to expand approved content sources and shift from channel enforcement to outcome-based guardrails.
“This is less about distribution mechanics and more about governance,” Koch says. “The programs that move from control to credibility will be the ones that hold.” He notes that smart players on both the supply and buy side are moving quickly. “New content access models are emerging, and buyers are not just evaluating them,” he says. “Many are piloting and implementing solutions to close pricing and content gaps.”
But there is great risk in overengineering the response, Koch cautions. “Layering new tools onto an already complex ecosystem can create more fragmentation, not less,” he says. Adding, “The real leverage comes from rethinking the program itself.” This means “clarifying goals, redefining success metrics, and aligning technology and policy around outcomes rather than focusing on channels.”
The Right Tools
One value brought by the resources now available is their potential to bring new levels of empowerment. “Forward-looking travel managers have long understood that a multi-source content strategy, blending multiple GDS with aggregators and direct supplier content, is key to managing risk and uncovering new opportunities for their programs,” Molter says. He notes that today, modern platforms provide the unified marketplace needed to finally turn that sophisticated strategy into reality. They empower managers to leverage the best of all content sources from a single point of control and bring in additional content, find more savings, and have more negotiating power with suppliers.
Of course, getting there means asking the right questions – and getting the answers in the right order.
Chloe Carver, engagement manager in Acquis Consulting’s corporate travel practice, says that with the amount of data travel managers have at their fingertips today, the first step in determining what tools you should use in quantifying air spend is to identify what questions you want to answer and why. “Define your program goals and the outcomes your program is accountable for first, then build the measurement framework, then select the tools that support it,” she says. “Programs that do it in the opposite order tend to end up data-rich but insight-poor.”
In terms of the tools available, the first stop should be your TMC’s data dashboards, according to Carver. “These tools are getting more and more sophisticated, with many incorporating the use of AI in their reporting and analytics,” she says. “Work with your TMC to design reports that provide you with the answers you need.”
Carver adds that beyond your TMC, tools such as PredictX, Cerebri AI, Grasp Technologies, Cornerstone, and Traxo are changing how travel managers access and interpret the data produced by their air spend. By consolidating data, capturing off-channel bookings, and applying AI, travel managers can dig into their data in entirely new ways.
Keeping Up
In managing air spend, it’s important to recognize that content and channel fragmentation is accelerating, not slowing down, according to Molter. He cautions against allowing TMCs to ‘get by’; instead, he encourages buyers to rigorously challenge their TMCs to prove how they’re adapting to the modern travel landscape.
Blunt agrees, encouraging buyers not to be reticent about asking suppliers questions. “TMCs and corporates have to be their own best advocates during supplier contract negotiations,” she says. “The supplier representative might not be knowledgeable enough about NDC or continuous pricing and can bring in others who understand them better.”
This means moving beyond accepting simple assurances to demanding concrete evidence of a unified content strategy, seamless servicing capabilities, and a technology platform that enhances the traveler experience.
Travel managers should ask how to verify that the offered fare is the best available when the “lowest logical fare” cannot be calculated, and how to confirm that your corporate discount has been applied if it is not clearly shown, Blunt adds. Such questions help ensure clarity and transparency.
Without this scrutiny, Molter says, companies risk being locked into legacy systems that create hidden costs, drive leakage and non-compliance, and ultimately fail to deliver real value. “Instead of trying to fight this trend by restricting traveler choice, which only drives bookings out of policy, focus your strategy on deploying a modern platform that can aggregate all content sources into a single marketplace,” he advises.
At the same time, industry sources say it’s a mistake to treat NDC as optional when airline retail transformation is structural and accelerating. “It’s equally risky to focus only on base fare instead of total trip value, and to rely on a single point of view – every stakeholder has an agenda, so balanced evaluation is critical,” according to a statement from United Airlines. With this in mind, travel buyers are urged to prioritize full content access and ensure that the technology they are using supports strong NDC integration.
Carver advises first assessing where you are today and acknowledging the air market isn’t the same as it was a few years ago. With those caveats in mind, you can then begin to redesign your program as necessary.
“If you don’t have a good grip on your data today, work with your TMC to evaluate what reports may help you close the gap,” she says. “If your travelers are constantly bringing meaningful fare differences to you, there is clearly a content or visibility gap that needs to be addressed.” A direct and honest conversation with your TMC and OBT about their NDC capabilities, including opportunities to establish direct connects and their data and reporting suite, will pay dividends, she says.
Going forward, stay engaged and connected. “Speak to your air reps and have open dialogues with fellow travel managers,” Carver says. “And continue to educate yourself on how the distribution landscape is evolving.”
While the changes at hand may be confusing, they also provide opportunities to modernize, Sultan concludes. “With the right integrations, travel managers can bring NDC and traditional content into a single omnichannel view and use real-time data, analytics, and automated servicing tools to better understand spend patterns and traveler behavior,” he says. The priority should be aligning booking, servicing, and reporting tools so they work seamlessly with airline capabilities.
