Greetings from TDN,
Last week, the industry made a lot of promises about AI, and we spent our time on what has actually been shown. Travelport and Cognizant say they are building an AI-native platform, WestJet is testing AI pricing with guardrails, and TPConnects is pitching MCP as a way for airlines to keep control.
Distribution itself kept moving. Ethiopian, EgyptAir, Nile Air and Riyadh Air are each building NDC distribution across several providers, and a closer look at the 90 percent NDC figure for Africa shows a third of survey responses with no plan to adopt.
Payments were in focus too. IATA says airlines spent $24.5bn on payments in 2025, with costs growing faster than sales. Triply wants African agents off SWIFT, and Somalia relaunched its BSP in Mogadishu.
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Airline Control in the Age of AI Agents: TPConnects Explains Its MCP Model
TPConnects says its MCP layer lets an AI agent integrate once and reach every MCP-enabled airline’s NDC API, while the airline keeps control of pricing, content and customer data. In answers to TDN, CTO Praveen Kumar explained how the layer is run, said pilots with several airlines are under way, and set out where he sees AI agent traffic fitting best.
Behind Africa’s 90 Percent NDC Figure, a Third of Survey Responses Report No Plan to Adopt
AFRAA’s Abderahmane Berthé told TDN that Africa’s 90 percent NDC gap reflects capacity, not will. The survey behind the figure shows more than 40 percent of responses planning or implementing NDC, alongside 36 percent with no plan to adopt within five years. The figures come from 70 responses across more than 25 airlines.
Airlines Pay $5 a Passenger to Take Payments. They Expect to Keep $4.50.
IATA says airlines spent $24.5bn processing payments in 2025, an average of $5 a passenger, against a forecast net profit of $4.50 a passenger this year. Payment costs have grown 10.4 percent against 7.7 percent for sales, and card fees average 2.53 percent. The release gives no regional breakdown, so what airlines in Africa and the Middle East actually pay remains unclear.
African and Middle Eastern Airlines Are Building Multi-Provider NDC Networks
Ethiopian, EgyptAir, Nile Air and Riyadh Air are each building NDC distribution across several providers, and among the announcements TDN reviewed, no single provider is named for all four. The same provider plays different roles depending on the airline, from airline-side technology to aggregator to GDS route. For agencies, more connections do not automatically mean better access.
WestJet Is Testing AI Pricing, and the Airline Says It Stays in Control
WestJet began testing AI-powered dynamic pricing through Accelya’s FLX ONE platform in August, with plans to widen it across its network. WestJet sets the parameters and guardrails, and the tool recommends when prices should change within them. The announcement does not yet give the scope of the test or any results.
Triply Wants African Travel Agents to Stop Paying SWIFT Fees on Every Supplier
Nairobi-based Triply says its platform now serves more than 500 travel businesses across East Africa, and that agencies using its virtual cards to pay international suppliers cut transaction costs by over 50 percent compared with SWIFT transfers. The company did not share its fee baseline, so agencies will want to test the numbers against their own supplier costs.
Somalia Relaunches IATA BSP Months After Pilot, Targeting 300+ Travel Agents
Somalia marked the relaunch of IATA’s Billing and Settlement Plan in Mogadishu on 18 October, following an April pilot with four travel agents and several airlines, including Ethiopian Airlines. IATA says the plan will open to all airlines and more than 300 travel agents. Whether airlines can reliably move sales revenue out of the country will decide if this is a milestone or a headline.
Look-to-Book Is an Architecture Problem, Too: Separating Discovery from Live Offers
Guest author Ahmed Alhamayda of Airpiv argues that high look-to-book is shaped by system design as well as seller behaviour. He points to published limits from Lufthansa Group, Qantas, Air France-KLM and Kenya Airways, and proposes setting how fresh data must be by what a stale answer would cost.
Travelport Has Yet to Show What AI-Native Means for Customers
Travelport and Cognizant announced on 27 October that their partnership is moving into a new phase, with the aim of making Travelport an AI-native platform in travel retailing. The first phase covered engineering, with AI tooling now being introduced across Travelport Trip Services. The customer-facing capabilities come with no dates or measures yet.
ARC Is Betting That Airlines Selling Direct Will Still Want Shared Settlement and Visibility
ARC’s Connex Orders now extends settlement to debit, credit and charge card orders, after starting with cash-paid orders earlier this year. Through Traverse, ARC also supports Air Canada’s Embarq platform for tracking corporate travel booked directly with the airline. ARC has not yet named an airline using Connex Orders, so adoption is the thing to watch.
UNTIL NEXT WEEK
That is it for this issue. If this was useful, forward it to a colleague in travel distribution, travel technology, or payments. If you have a tip, a data point, or want to be featured in TDN, reply directly to this email.
Wishing you a fruitful week ahead!
Gustave Sugira
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Travel Distribution News
Kigali, Rwanda