Selling Low-Cost Carriers Next to GDS and NDC Content

For years an agency's flight stack meant one GDS. Today many of the routes customers ask for are flown by low-cost carriers that sell through their own channels, and NDC is moving full-service airlines in the same direction.

Why LCC content is different

Low-cost carriers price the base fare, bags, seats and meals separately, publish their own fare families, and often handle changes and cancellations under their own rules rather than through a GDS ticket. An agent comparing a GDS fare with an LCC fare is rarely comparing like with like unless the system normalises both.

The cost of separate systems

When LCC content lives in a separate portal, agents search twice, compare by hand and re-key passenger details. Margins differ per source and nobody sees the combined picture. Worse, the cheapest option for the customer may simply never be looked at.

What a combined search needs

A single request that fans out to every connected supplier; results normalised into one format so fares, baggage and fare brands can be compared; markup applied consistently; and booking, payment and servicing that follow the same flow whichever supplier sold the seat.

What still needs supplier-specific handling

Normalising the display does not remove the differences underneath. Refund rules, change fees and what can be modified after ticketing vary by carrier, and a good engine handles that inside the platform rather than leaving the agent to remember it. Ask a vendor which post-booking actions work for each carrier, not just whether the carrier is listed.

How FareOS approaches it

FareOS searches GDS, NDC and low-cost carrier suppliers in one ranked search and normalises the results into a single format, so an agent sees them side by side. The integrations page lists each connected carrier. To see how it handles your own mix of carriers, request a demo at ecogo.ai.