DOT ISSUES FINAL ORDER APPROVING IATA RESOLUTION 787
September 8, 2014
On August 6, 2014, DOT issued a final order (Order 2014-8-1) approving IATA Resolution 787, subject to specific conditions. This order follows the Department’s tentative grant of approval issued May 21, 2014.
As background, Resolution 787 establishes a process to develop a technical standard for data exchange within the air transportation market place. This process uses Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is a markup language that provides rules for encoding data in human-readable and machine-readable format. Resolution 787 established certain goals associated with the use of this data standard, including the capability to provide personalized airline ticket pricing to consumers. These goals are known as New Distribution Capability (NDC).
After reviewing more than 40 comments received in response to its tentative grant of approval, DOT ultimately adopted Resolution 787, but limited its approval to the creation of an XML communications standard. DOT also stated that any future agreement among IATA members regarding business models for distributing air transportation shall not be implemented without compliance with the applicable government approval or notification process.