A new chapter in BA’s NDC journey: moving to Amadeus Altéa NDC

June 25, 2026

3 min read

Louise Baxendale

Head of Indirect Platforms - British Airways

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For more than a decade, British Airways has been investing in NDC, as we recognised its potential to help create a more modern way of retailing. Our in-house 21.3 programme has played an important role in that journey, giving us the foundation to learn, evolve and deliver real value for both our partners and our customers.

Now, we are taking the next step by moving to Amadeus Altéa NDC on the IATA 21.3 standard.

Why are we moving to Amadeus Altéa NDC?

The move to Altéa NDC is part of our £7bn business transformation, as we upgrade our planes and cabin interiors, improve customer care, and overhaul our technology. LaunchingAltéa NDC is a key foundational step in that journey, helping us to further embed NDC today while preparing for a full Offer and Order model in the future.

It gives us a stable and consistent platform, built on a standard that is already widely used across the industry - making it easier for our partners to manage their connections. It will also provide greater reliability and resilience today and a clearer path to future capabilities leveraging the Amadeus roadmap.

By partnering with Amadeus for NDC, we benefit from a more standardised environment, making it easier to integrate new partners and accelerate adoption across our distribution ecosystem.

Why version 21.3 matters

Normally, version numbers of technical solutions are not something to get overly excited about. But version 21.3 matters, not because of the number itself, but because it is where the travel industry is heading. As it is fully compatible with the wider shift to Offer and Order management, it is well suited to large-scale airline retailing and travel agency adoption, and it has become the main base for new capabilities across the industry.

For us, that means moving at the right moment: building on what already works, while setting ourselves up for what comes next.

What does this mean for our partners?

This is an important step not just for us at British Airways but for our travel seller partners too. By combining the advantages of the IATA NDC standard with the integration to the Altéa PSS, we’re creating a more robust, consistent and scalable environment for distribution.

Here are some of the key benefits we expect to see for travel sellers:

Faster, easier onboarding at scale: A mature standardised environment with established onboarding processes that reduce complexity and speeds up time to market.
Lower operational effort: More consistent data and harmonised workflows simplify system integration, reduce maintenance, and limit the need for on-going retraining.
More complete servicing capabilities:Enhanced end-to-end servicing that supports real-life agency workflows and reduces manual workloads. For example, exchanges, re-shopping, name changes, and synchronised Order updates.

With this transition, we aim to make NDC easier for travel sellers to adopt and use at scale while accelerating our retailing transformation.

A part of a bigger picture

This is more than a version upgrade. It is part of the wider transformation under way at British Airways, from our brand new website, to the launch of our new app, we continue to invest in modernising our technology to improve how we serve our customers.

Moving to Altéa NDC and the 21.3 standard helps us build a more scalable foundation for the future. It gives us the flexibility to keep developing better retailing capabilities over time, while making that journey more practical for the partners who work with our content every day.

We are putting the right foundations in place now so we can keep improving for the long term.

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