Travel retailing, defined plainly.
NDC, IATA, and travel-retailing terminology — without the jargon-on-jargon.
A
ACMI
Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance — the four cost components an operator typically charges for in a wet-lease or charter arrangement. Pricing models often break out each component for transparency.
Ad-hoc charter
A single-flight or short-series charter booked outside a framework agreement. Pricing is usually quoted per request rather than from a contract rate sheet.
Ancillary revenue
Revenue earned beyond the base air fare — including bags, seats, lounges, upgrades, food, Wi-Fi, and bundles. The fastest-growing line item on most airline P&Ls.
Attach rate
The percentage of bookings that include a given ancillary or bundle. The most-cited single merchandising metric.
B
M
Merchandising
The discipline of deciding what offer to surface to which traveler at which step of the funnel.
Meta-search
Aggregator platforms (e.g. Google Flights, Skyscanner, Kayak) that surface offers from multiple sellers in a single comparison view. A direct distribution channel for many airlines and a long-tail acquisition surface.
Multi-language localization
Native support for the languages travelers shop in. AncillaryOffers ships with English, Arabic, French, and Turkish; geo-based targeting handles currency, copy, and creative per market.
N
NDC (New Distribution Capability)
An IATA-developed XML-based data transmission standard for travel distribution that enables airlines to merchandise offers and ancillaries to indirect channels with the richness available on direct channels.
NSOP (Non-Scheduled Operator)
An operator running flights outside published timetables — typically charter, ACMI, or ad-hoc operations. Quotation, pricing, and contracting workflows differ materially from scheduled operations.
O
Offer
A composed, ready-to-shop bundle of air, ancillary, and partner content presented to a traveler at a specific moment, with a price valid for a defined window.
Offer-and-order
An NDC-aligned architectural pattern in which the airline owns a unified offer and order representation across all distribution channels.
Order
The post-purchase representation of what a traveler bought. In NDC, the offer transitions to an order at confirmation.