576 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM as well as consolidate airline information and offerings in the same way and in the same environment (Fig. 1). With the NDC a travel agency would have the opportunity to negotiate the sale of, for example, seats on flights, Wi-Fi or special food, and so generate new revenues from routes. 2.2. The Standardisation of the NDC in the Travel Industry Considering IATA’s inclusion in several jurisdictions around the world, the Association has a relationship with all its associated airlines and its so-called accredited travel agencies, which are guided by the resolutions created by IATA. It was no different with the NDC, which, after many discussions and analysis, as well as confrontation and doubts on the part of the travel agencies, also gained normative direction, with IATA’s Resolution 787 of 2012. According to a note from IATA, issued on 7 August 2014: “The Resolution is the foundation document for the New Distribution Capability (NDC), a travel industry-supported program launched by IATA for the development and market adoption of a new, XML-based data transmission standard. «This is a very exciting development for air travelers, airlines, intermediaries, and for competition,» said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO”. Once the initial NDC project directly involved a US airline (American Airlines), the US air transport standards approval by the DOT was required, and so IATA had to issue and submit an application for approval of an agreement of Resolution 787. The application for IATA’s submission took place on 11 March 2013 and contemplated innumerable positions, comments and interventions of several interested parties, representative associations of travel agencies and companies of the sector. By then, it came clear that the travel agent sector was opposing the project proposed by IATA on several points. To do so, they followed sections directly from the decision presented by the DOT, published on 21 May 20143, which synthesised the reports and comments presented by travel agencies and their representative associations from various locations around the world, which are extremely relevant to the present work: 3 Available on IATA’s website, at https://www.iata.org/whatwedo/airline-distribution/ndc/Documents /dot- -tentative-ndc.pdf.
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