GDS, LCC and NDC: what content mix does your portal need?

Air content arrives from several channels that behave differently, price differently and cost differently to search. Agencies frequently connect more of them than they need, then wonder why search feels slow and supplier invoices feel high.

What each channel is actually good at#

GDS content covers full-service carriers, interline and codeshare itineraries, and the complicated multi-sector trips that are difficult to assemble any other way. It is the reliable backbone for international selling. It also carries the most mature servicing — reissue, refund, queue handling — which matters more than agencies expect until the first schedule change.

Low-cost carrier content generally does not sit in the GDS in the same way, and on many domestic and regional routes the LCCs are the market. If you sell domestic India, intra-Gulf or intra-Southeast Asia, LCC coverage is not optional.

NDC is airline-direct content, and increasingly it carries fares, bundles and ancillaries that never reach the GDS at all. Where it is mature, it can be both cheaper and richer. Where it is not, servicing can be worse than the GDS equivalent.

The costs nobody budgets for#

Search cost is the one that surprises people. Some agreements charge per shopping request, and a portal that fans every search out to five sources can generate a bill that has nothing to do with bookings. Look-to-book ratio is the number to watch, and any serious platform should report it per supplier.

Latency is the second cost, paid by your customer rather than by you. Each additional source adds time to the search. Sources should be run in parallel with a timeout, so a slow supplier degrades the result rather than blocking it — but even then, more sources means slower.

Servicing complexity is the third. Every channel has its own rules for change, cancellation and refund. Your counter staff carry that complexity, and each additional channel makes their job harder.

A sensible starting mix#

For most agencies, two or three air sources is right. A GDS or consolidator for full-service and international content. An aggregator or direct connections for the LCCs on your domestic and regional routes. Then either NDC or your own negotiated fares as the third, depending on which your commercials favour.

Add the fourth only when the data says a route is being lost. The margin and win-rate reports per supplier are what make that call, and they usually show it within a month of a source going live.

How the sources should behave together#

One search, fanned out in parallel. Identical itineraries de-duplicated, with a rule deciding which source wins — usually whichever leaves the better net position after your markup. Per-source markup, because your margin expectation on a consolidator fare is not your margin expectation on your own negotiated fare.

The source should be visible to you in the back office and invisible on the front end. Your customer does not need to know, and your sub-agent generally should not.