OpenTravel Alliance (OpenTravel) attended and participated in the International Air Transport Association (IATA) New Distribution Capability (NDC) Hackathon from August 25-27, 2017 at the LinkedIn headquarters in Sunnyvale, California USA. The IATA NDC Hackathon hosted about 20 participating teams, and consisted of a 28-hour coding experience, on-site workshops and access to industry mentors. Sandy Angel, specifications manager at OpenTravel, served as a mentor to the participating hackers.
As part of the NDC program, IATA develops and maintains a suite of XML messages supporting airline distribution. APIs were provided by companies including LinksRez, IBM, SITA, LinkedIn and others. The hackathon asked participants to use at least one of the IATA APIs, and solve at least one of three challenges presented around travel. LinksRez, a sponsor of the OpenTravel 2.0 Golf Standards, provided several APIs that implemented the OpenTravel and HTNG standards for hotel as well as the OpenTravel standards for ground transportation and golf as part of their participation at the event. Two of the teams won a first place prize using the LinkRez, OpenTravel and HTNG standards-based APIs. All winning teams will now enter an incubation phase to further elaborate their ideas, and potentially present their application at a future IATA event.
"Hackathons are a great example of how NDC, by modernizing the communication protocols between airlines and travel agents, create opportunities for new entrant developers to build solutions around IATA standards," said Yanik Hoyles, NDC program director at IATA. "On this path towards innovation, we are glad to have travel partners offering their APIs at our Hackathons, and supporting us on the journey. We are looking forward to our third event in 2017 at École Polytechnique in Paris (20-22 October) where LinksRez will become a gold sponsor."
"It was important to OpenTravel to participate in the IATA NDC 2017 Hackathon as we did in Dublin," said OpenTravel CEO Mike Tinkey. "The event served as part of our ongoing work to expand collaboration with IATA NDC. Connecting the consumer for a seamless travel experience end-to-end with their business and leisure travel is a goal of both organizations."
For more information on OpenTravel Alliance's 2.0 Standards, please contact Sandy Angel (Sandy.Angel@Opentravel.org) of OpenTravel Alliance.
