GDS vs NDC: What's the Difference for Business Travel?

GDS vs NDC: What's the Difference for Business Travel?

The plumbing behind every flight booking is changing quietly, and faster than most travel programmes realise. By December 2025, NDC accounted for 21.2% of air transactions settled through US travel agencies, up from 20.3% a year earlier (ARC, Annual U.S. Travel Agency Air Ticket Sales Surpass $100 Billion, January 2026).

This guide explains what GDS and NDC actually are, how they differ, why airlines are pushing the change, and what it means if you buy corporate travel or book it for clients. The short version: the two are converging, and what matters is whether the tool you book through carries both. We also cover the third channel that matters in Asia-Pacific, direct airline APIs, and where travel CRMs and booking tools fit.

Key Takeaways

• A GDS (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) is the legacy pipe that aggregates flights from many airlines; NDC is IATA's newer XML standard that lets airlines distribute richer, direct offers.

• NDC reached 21.2% of US agency air transactions by December 2025, and corporate NDC bookings grew 168% year on year in Q4 2025 (ARC; Accelya, 2026).

• It's converging, not competing: the major GDSs now distribute NDC content too, so the real question is whether your booking tool gives you both.

• The gap is servicing and readiness: in 2023, 81% of travel buyers said they needed more information on NDC (GBTA, 2023).

What is a GDS?

A Global Distribution System is the legacy marketplace that aggregates flight, hotel, and car content from many suppliers and feeds it to travel agencies through a decades-old messaging standard (EDIFACT). The three majors are Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport: the last of which historically ran Galileo, Apollo, and Worldspan. Their scale is enormous: in its 2025 financial year, Amadeus alone processed 484.5 million air bookings and counted 2.25 billion passengers boarded (Amadeus, FY 2025 results, February 2026).

The GDS did one thing brilliantly for forty years: aggregation. One search returns fares across almost every carrier, in a standardised display, with mature workflows for changes and refunds. That convenience is exactly why it became the backbone of corporate travel.

Its limitation is the flip side of that strength: everything gets flattened into the same standardised format.

What is NDC?

NDC (New Distribution Capability) is a data-exchange standard created by IATA that lets airlines build and distribute offers directly to agents using XML rather than the old EDIFACT pipes. IATA defines it as "a data exchange format based on Offer and Order management processes for airlines to create and distribute relevant offers" (IATA, Distribution with Offers & Orders (NDC), 2026).

According to IATA, NDC exists to fix three limits of legacy distribution: slow product differentiation and time-to-market, restricted access to full and rich air content, and the lack of a transparent shopping experience (IATA, 2026). In practice, that means an airline can present fare families, bundles, and ancillaries (seats, bags, lounge access) as differentiated offers, instead of watching them collapse into a generic GDS row.

NDC doesn't replace aggregation. It changes who controls the offer.

GDS vs NDC: what's actually different?

The difference is content control and richness versus aggregation and mature servicing. A GDS gives you breadth and standardised, battle-tested workflows; NDC gives you richer, airline-controlled offers but with less uniform servicing across carriers. Here's the honest comparison, framed by IATA's own definitions:

The catch is aggregation. When each carrier's NDC content sits behind a different connection at a different level of maturity, the "one search, everything" promise weakens, which is precisely why IATA built an Airline Retailing Maturity (ARM) Index to score capability across the shop, order, pay, and settle streams (IATA, 2026).

Neither is simply better. They're optimised for different things.

GDS vs NDC vs direct airline APIs

There is a third way to get airline content, and in Asia-Pacific it matters as much as the other two. A direct API is an airline's own connection, which may or may not follow the NDC standard. Low-cost carriers have historically sold mainly through their own websites and direct connections, with aggregators such as Travelfusion collecting that content for agencies and booking tools.

For a company flying mostly within South-East Asia, where low-cost carriers carry a large share of regional traffic, a GDS-only search can miss many of the cheapest fares on short routes. That is why the practical target is a booking tool that combines all three: GDS for breadth, NDC for richer full-service content, and low-cost carrier content from direct connections or an aggregator.

Where do travel CRMs and booking tools fit?

The distribution layer is only half of the stack. Above it sits the software a company or agency actually uses: a booking tool for travellers, a CRM or mid-office for agencies managing client profiles and bookings, and the finance systems that receive the invoices.

A booking tool is where the content from GDS, NDC and direct APIs becomes one search, where the travel policy is applied, and where the booking is paid for. Agencies usually add a CRM to hold traveller profiles, preferences and client history. When you evaluate either, the question to ask is which content sources it connects to, and whether changes and refunds work the same way for all of them.

Why are airlines pushing NDC?

Airlines push NDC because it hands them back control of their product and their distribution economics. Under the GDS model, an airline's fare is displayed in a standardised row alongside competitors, and the airline pays per-segment distribution fees for the privilege. NDC lets carriers present differentiated offers and bundles directly, and route more volume through channels they control. That is the same logic that led carriers such as Lufthansa Group to add GDS surcharges and steer content toward direct and NDC channels from 2015 onward.

The momentum is now measurable rather than theoretical. In Q4 2025, corporate NDC bookings grew 168% year on year, and NDC volumes distributed through the GDSs themselves grew 162% (Accelya, NDC FastTrack participants expand, April 2026, citing ARC data). By the first quarter of 2026, SAP Concur alone had passed one million NDC bookings.

For airlines, NDC is a distribution strategy. For everyone downstream, it's a change they have to absorb.

Is it really GDS versus NDC?

Not any more: the framing is out of date. The clearest signal is that the GDSs themselves now distribute NDC content: the industry's NDC FastTrack coalition includes ARC, Navan, Travelfusion, and SAP Concur alongside Amex GBT, BCD, CTM, FCM, and all three major GDSs: Sabre, Amadeus, and Travelport (Accelya, 2026). The pipe and the standard are converging.

That reframes the decision. The question isn't "should I be on GDS or NDC?" It's "does whatever I book through give me both (GDS breadth and NDC content) without making me choose or run two systems?"

This is where a modern booking platform earns its place. Accomy is GDS-powered with NDC integration live today, so flights come through with full fare access in one flow: the aggregation of the GDS and the richer content of NDC, rather than a trade-off between them. For a travel programme, that means you don't have to bet on one pipe winning.

The winners won't be teams that picked a side. They'll be the ones who stopped having to.

What does this mean for buyers and travel agencies?

For corporate buyers, the risk isn't picking the wrong standard. It's a servicing and readiness gap. Even as adoption climbs, many programmes aren't equipped for it: in 2023, 81% of travel buyers said they needed more information on NDC, 50% felt their TMC hadn't shared sufficient NDC plans, and 48% had not begun implementation (GBTA, Business Travel Outlook Poll, 2023). Adoption has moved on since, but the readiness gap is the real exposure. NDC content that can't be changed or refunded cleanly becomes a duty-of-care problem as well as a technical one.

So the practical checklist for evaluating a booking tool is short:

• Does it give you both GDS and NDC content in one search, not two systems?

• Can it service an NDC booking (changes, exchanges, refunds) as cleanly as a GDS one?

• Does it show the rich content (fare families, ancillaries) NDC is supposed to unlock?

For travel agencies, the same shift is an opportunity. By December 2025, 1,139 agencies were already settling NDC transactions through ARC (ARC, 2026). Rather than build direct airline connections yourself, an online booking tool that already carries GDS and NDC content lets you offer clients both. That's exactly what agencies use Accomy's OBT for, booking flights and hotels for their clients on aggregated GDS and NDC content, without standing up the plumbing themselves.

NDC also changes the accounting for agencies. Changes and refunds handled outside familiar GDS workflows are where fare differences get missed, and those come back later as agency debit memos (ADMs). Ask any provider how it handles NDC exchanges before you move volume onto them. If you are choosing a GDS itself, our comparison of Amadeus, Sabre and Galileo covers which suits which kind of agency.

The standard you book on matters less than whether you can book, change, and service the trip in one place.

Related reading

• Amadeus vs Sabre vs Galileo: A Practical GDS Comparison

• NDC for Corporate Travel Buyers: What It Means for You

• How to Start a Travel Agency: Accreditation to Booking Tech

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between GDS and NDC?

A GDS (Global Distribution System) is the legacy technology that aggregates flights from many airlines into one standardised search for agencies, using the EDIFACT standard. NDC (New Distribution Capability) is IATA's newer XML-based standard that lets airlines distribute richer, differentiated offers directly. By December 2025, NDC made up 21.2% of US agency air transactions (ARC, 2026).

What is the difference between GDS, NDC and direct airline APIs?

A GDS aggregates many airlines into one search using a legacy standard. NDC is IATA's XML standard that lets an airline send richer offers, often through a GDS or aggregator. A direct airline API is a single airline's own connection, common among low-cost carriers. Most booking tools now combine all three.

Do low-cost carriers use the GDS or NDC?

Many low-cost carriers have historically sold mainly through their own websites and direct connections, and have limited or no content in the GDSs. Aggregators such as Travelfusion collect that content for agencies. In South-East Asia, where low-cost carriers carry much of the regional traffic, a booking tool needs this content as well as GDS and NDC.

What is a travel CRM?

A travel CRM holds traveller profiles, preferences and booking history for an agency or travel team, and connects them to the booking tools and content sources used to make reservations. It sits above the distribution layer. It does not supply airline content itself.

Is NDC replacing the GDS?

No. They're converging, not competing. The major GDSs (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) now distribute NDC content themselves and sit on the industry's NDC FastTrack coalition (Accelya, 2026). The practical goal for a travel programme is access to both GDS breadth and NDC content in one booking flow, rather than choosing one.

Why do airlines want NDC?

NDC gives airlines control of their offer and their distribution costs. It lets them present fare families, bundles, and ancillaries as differentiated offers instead of standardised GDS rows, and route bookings through channels they control. Corporate NDC bookings grew 168% year on year in Q4 2025 (Accelya, citing ARC, 2026).

What are the downsides of NDC for corporate travel?

The main issue is uneven servicing and readiness. NDC content can be harder to change, exchange, or refund consistently across carriers, and many programmes weren't prepared: in 2023, 81% of travel buyers said they needed more information on NDC (GBTA, 2023). Inconsistent servicing is a duty-of-care risk, not just a technical inconvenience.

Which GDS is best for a travel agency?

It depends on where your bookings go. Amadeus is strongest for European and long-haul global travel, Sabre for North American bookings, and Travelport for agencies that value its retailing tools. Our Amadeus vs Sabre vs Galileo comparison goes through the trade-offs.

How should a travel programme prepare for NDC?

Choose a booking tool that carries both GDS and NDC content in one search, can service NDC bookings (changes and refunds) cleanly, and surfaces the rich content NDC enables. For agencies, an online booking tool that already aggregates GDS and NDC removes the need to build direct airline connections. Amadeus alone processed 484.5 million air bookings in FY2025 (Amadeus, 2026), so aggregation still matters.

Quick Takeaways

• GDS = legacy aggregation and mature servicing; NDC = richer, airline-controlled offers via IATA's XML standard.

• NDC hit 21.2% of US agency air transactions by December 2025 and corporate NDC grew 168% YoY in Q4 2025 (ARC; Accelya, 2026).

• The GDSs now distribute NDC too. It's convergence, so the real question is whether your tool gives you both.

• The exposure is servicing and readiness, not picking a side (GBTA, 2023).

• For agencies, an OBT carrying both standards is faster than building direct connections.

Business travel shouldn't feel like a second job. Accomy is GDS-powered with NDC integration live, so flights come through with full fare access in one place: for teams booking their own travel, and for agencies booking their clients'.

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Sources (retrieved 2026-07-13, updated 2026-09-30)

• ARC, Annual U.S. Travel Agency Air Ticket Sales Surpass $100 Billion (December 2025 settlement data), January 2026 — https://www2.arccorp.com/about-us/newsroom/2026-news-releases/december-2025-air-ticket-sales/

• Accelya, NDC FastTrack participants expand (Q4 2025 / Q1 2026 figures, citing ARC), April 2026 — https://w3.accelya.com/resources/press-releases/ndc-fasttrack-participants-expand/

• Amadeus, Amadeus FY 2025 results, February 2026 — https://amadeus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/amadeus-fy-2025-results-revenue-growth

• IATA, Distribution with Offers & Orders (New Distribution Capability – NDC), 2026 — https://www.iata.org/en/programs/airline-distribution/retailing/ndc/

• IATA, Airline Retailing / ARM Index, 2026 — https://www.iata.org/en/programs/airline-distribution/retailing/

• Travelfusion, low-cost and NDC content aggregator (member of the NDC FastTrack coalition, per Accelya, 2026)

• GBTA, Business Travel Outlook Poll (Q2 2023 industry poll), April 2023 — https://www.gbta.org/gbta-industry-poll-reveals-key-drivers-poised-to-shape-the-path-ahead-for-global-business-travel/