608 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM Indeed, because legacy GDS have adequate financial and technological resources13 and long-established connectivity (upstream with airlines and other travel service providers; downstream with travel agents and other vertical travel search engines), they have reacted by “entering the NDC market” through partnering with airlines to create NDC pipelines, be it interoperation with one partnered airline, or by developing an NDC interface where multiple airlines can join in and interconnect to. In other words, at the “technology” market (i.e., (a) above) NDC intensifies intra-system competition (among the existing EDIFACT-based APIs when facing the potential shrinking of green-screen market; and among the existing and potential NDC-based APIs for this new NDC market) and inter-system competition (among all systems). This brings us further away from the foreclosure effect on competing technology and innovations that theoretically exist with standard-setting agreements on technologies14. Further, airlines remain free to market their products in whatever distribution channels they see commercially fit, meaning airlines can use both EDIFACT- -based and NDC-based APIs at the same time. NDC is not the exclusive standard for marketing rich travel contents – it only sets one set of codes. Significant independence of each airline as the economic operator has been preserved, otherwise we would have seen airlines conducting themselves in the same way when developing an NDC distribution channel15. It is also generally recognised that a standardisation agreement brings about huge pro-competitive effects16. In the case of NDC, it improves the flow of product information, increases connectivity, reduces distribution costs and improves system interoperability17 (especially reducing the high “switching cost” of unplugging from an aggregator and switching to another, as airlines and agents are currently locked-in by major GDS). These translate into an increase of consumer benefits as a whole. 13 Especially what is required in keeping up with the continuously updated versions of XML base codes published by IATA. 14 Guidelines on the applicability of Article of the TFEU to horizontal co-operation agreements, 14.1.2011, OJ 2011/C 11/01 (Horizontal Guidelines), para 266. 15 For example, Amadeus has for years used its Rich Content programme for suppliers to market their rich content and ancillary travel products as a supplement to the traditional GDS green screen system; Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO), in response to NDC, has acquired RouteHappy (a content platform which Sabre and Amadeus had partnered with) in late 2018. 16 Horizontal Guidelines, para 308. 17 Horizontal Guidelines, para 321.
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