Glossary
Definitions and explainers for the terms used across airline distribution, supplier connectivity and modern travel software.
This glossary explains the language of travel technology in plain terms. It covers airline distribution (GDS, airline NDC and LCC), supplier connectivity, and the operational and finance layer often called the mid‑office. Each entry includes a short definition and a longer explainer, plus links to related products and articles where that helps you go deeper.
The aim is clarity, not a hard sell. Where a concept relates to how our platform works — for example a unified order model or agent hierarchies in a B2B portal — we reference those ideas so the definition is practical. You do not need to be an Elkanio customer to use this glossary.
Use the letter navigation above to jump to a section, then open any term card to read the full definition. If you are new to airline distribution, a good path is to start with NDC, GDS, LCC and BSP. If you are focused on operations, begin with Mid‑office, Agency credit & wallet and Markup.
Many definitions link to related reading in Insights and to product or solution pages when useful. For quick context on the platform as a whole, see the FAQ.
A
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Agency credit & wallet
Financial controls in B2B distribution: per‑agency credit limits, deposits and prepaid wallets that fund bookings and are reconciled in real time.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Agency hierarchy
The multi‑tier structure of master agency, sub‑agency and sometimes sub‑sub‑agency used in B2B distribution. Controls branding, pricing, credit and visibility.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Agency model
Commercial model where the supplier charges the traveller directly. The intermediary earns commission and may collect service fees.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Allotment
A negotiated block of inventory — airline seats or hotel rooms — held for a period with release dates and penalties. Allotments are common in groups and contracted rates.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Ancillaries
Optional extras sold with the core product, such as bags, seats and meals for flights, or breakfast and parking for hotels.
Air & NDC Read definition -
ARC
Airlines Reporting Corporation, the US counterpart to BSP, handling settlement between accredited agencies and airlines in the United States.
Mid-office Read definition -
ATPCO
The Airline Tariff Publishing Company, an industry utility that collects, normalises and distributes airline fare data, rules and taxes to GDSs and other systems.
Air & NDC Read definition
B
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B2B travel portal
A booking website that a consolidator or master agency gives to the sub‑agents and corporate clients it supplies. Agents log in to search and book travel at the prices the network sets, against their own credit or wallet, under the operator’s brand.
B2B commercial Read definition -
BSP (Billing and Settlement Plan)
IATA’s system for billing and settlement between accredited travel agencies and airlines. BSP consolidates ticket sales and remittances and provides standard financial reporting and controls.
Mid-office Read definition -
BSP reconciliation
The process of matching BSP sales and remittance statements to internal bookings and orders so ledgers are accurate and exceptions are resolved quickly.
Mid-office Read definition
C
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Capability flag
A per‑supplier or per‑carrier indicator of which features are supported — e.g. post‑ticket ancillaries, involuntary change handling, continuous pricing.
Connectivity Read definition -
Connectivity provider
A vendor or in‑house platform that offers supplier integrations and a unified interface for search, booking and servicing across travel verticals.
Connectivity Read definition -
Consolidator
A wholesaler that negotiates airline contracts and distributes fares to agencies and sub‑agencies. Consolidators provide inventory, credit and settlement facilities to their network.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Content aggregator
A platform that connects to multiple suppliers and exposes a unified API and schema across them, often adding mapping, caching and capability abstraction.
Connectivity Read definition -
Continuous pricing
Airline practice of returning price points between traditional fare buckets, enabled by NDC and modern retailing. Provides finer granularity than filed fares alone.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Credit note
A document that reduces the amount owed on an invoice, often issued for cancellations, partial refunds or negotiated adjustments.
Mid-office Read definition
D
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Distribution channel
A route to market for travel products: direct corporate, B2B sub‑agents, OTAs, metasearch and more. Channels shape pricing, content and servicing expectations.
B2B commercial Read definition -
DMC (Destination Management Company)
A local ground operator that provides tours, transfers and on‑the‑ground services. DMCs often supply contracted rates to agencies and consolidators.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Duty of care
An employer’s responsibility to keep travellers safe and informed. In travel this includes visibility of who is travelling where and prompt handling of disruptions.
Corporate Read definition -
Dynamic packaging
Assembling multiple travel components — flights, hotels, transfers, insurance — into a single priced package on the fly, often with merchant settlement.
B2B commercial Read definition
F
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Fare basis
An airline code that identifies a specific fare with its booking class and conditions. Used widely in GDS pricing, auditing and reporting.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Fare family
An airline’s branded fare bundle that includes a set of conditions and ancillaries (e.g. baggage, seat selection, changes).
Air & NDC Read definition -
Fare rules
The conditions attached to a fare: changes, cancellations, no‑show, minimum stay and combinability. Expressed as ATPCO categories in legacy flows and as policy text or structured flags in NDC.
Air & NDC Read definition -
FIT (Free Independent Traveller)
Independent travel built from components rather than a fixed group tour. In B2B contexts, FIT pricing and fulfilment flow through the same systems as other retail.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Form of payment (FOP)
The method used to pay for a booking: agency credit wallet, VCC, corporate card, bank transfer or cash. Affects settlement, fees and risk.
Mid-office Read definition
G
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GDS (Global Distribution System)
Airline and travel distribution networks such as Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. GDSs aggregate fares, schedules and availability and provide ticketing, settlement and agency tooling built on decades of standards.
Air & NDC Read definition -
GST / VAT
Goods and Services Tax / Value Added Tax applied to eligible fees and services. Requires correct calculation, invoicing and reporting by jurisdiction.
Mid-office Read definition
I
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IATA
The International Air Transport Association, an industry body that publishes standards like NDC and runs accreditation and settlement programmes such as BSP.
Air & NDC Read definition -
IATA accreditation
A status that allows an agency to issue tickets through BSP under its own code, subject to financial and operational requirements. Alternatives include operating under a host agency.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Idempotency
The property of an API where repeating the same request with the same key has the same effect and returns the same resource, preventing duplicates under retries.
Connectivity Read definition -
Involuntary schedule change (IRROPS)
Airline‑initiated changes to an itinerary — time, flight number, cancellations — due to operational reasons. Requires prompt detection, re‑accommodation and traveller communication.
Air & NDC Read definition
L
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LCC (Low‑Cost Carrier)
Airlines that typically distribute through direct web APIs instead of traditional GDS channels. LCCs often have different fare rules, ancillaries and servicing patterns compared to legacy carriers.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Look‑to‑book
The ratio of searches (looks) to bookings. It is a measure of search efficiency and conversion and drives cost and capacity planning.
Connectivity Read definition
M
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Markup
An amount added to net or public prices to achieve margin. Markups are often set by supplier, product, market, agency tier and currency, with effective dates.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Merchant model
Commercial model where the intermediary (agency/platform) is the merchant of record and collects payment from the buyer, remitting to suppliers later.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Merchant of record (MoR)
The legal entity that appears on the buyer’s card statement and is responsible for chargebacks, refunds and compliance. Distinct from the supplier of the service.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Mid‑office
The operational and finance layer between booking and accounting: invoicing, BSP matching, supplier reconciliation, statements, taxes and ledgers.
Mid-office Read definition
N
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NDC (New Distribution Capability)
IATA’s standard for airline distribution over modern APIs. NDC exposes rich content, branded fares and ancillaries directly from airlines, replacing parts of the legacy GDS EDIFACT model and enabling airline‑controlled pricing and retailing.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Negotiated fare
A fare under a private contract — consolidator, corporate, series — with eligibility, commission and display restrictions. Not visible to the general market.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Net fare
A fare sold net of commission. The seller adds markup or service fees to achieve margin, rather than earning commission from the supplier.
B2B commercial Read definition
O
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OK to Board (OTB)
An airline clearance, added as a message on the booking (PNR), confirming that a passenger’s visa has been checked before travel. Some carriers require it for certain South Asian travellers flying to Gulf destinations such as the UAE, often on visa copies or e‑visas. Without it, check‑in can be refused.
Air & NDC Read definition -
One Order
IATA’s initiative to simplify airline retailing by replacing the legacy e‑ticket and PNR pair with a single Order and Order ID. One Order aligns with NDC and modernises fulfilment, accounting and interline through an order‑centric model.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Operating carrier
The airline that physically operates a flight segment, which may differ from the marketing or ticketing carrier in codeshare and interline scenarios.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Order management (NDC)
The lifecycle of an airline order in NDC: create, pay, ticket, change, refund and handle involuntary schedule changes, using the airline’s order as the source of truth.
Air & NDC Read definition -
OTA (Online Travel Agency)
A consumer‑facing travel retailer that sells flights, hotels and other products online under its own brand and marketing.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Override commission
An additional commission paid based on volume or target achievement, often settled periodically outside per‑ticket earnings. Common in airline and hotel contracting.
B2B commercial Read definition
P
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Passenger service system (PSS)
Airline core system handling reservations, inventory and departure control. PSS capabilities and release cycles influence how an airline exposes NDC and servicing flows.
Air & NDC Read definition -
PNR (Passenger Name Record)
A record in a reservation system that holds itinerary and passenger details. In NDC the airline order becomes the authoritative record, but PNRs still exist in many flows.
Air & NDC Read definition -
Private fare
A negotiated or restricted fare not publicly available, such as consolidator, corporate or series fares, loaded under a contract and shown to eligible sellers.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Property mapping
The process of matching hotel property records and content across suppliers so the same hotel does not appear multiple times with conflicting data.
Connectivity Read definition -
Pseudo city code (PCC)
A GDS identifier assigned to an agency location that controls access to content, queues and profiles. PCCs are part of legacy credentialing and workflow in GDS environments.
Air & NDC Read definition
S
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Schema drift
Unannounced or evolving changes in a supplier’s API responses that break fragile mappings: new enum values, missing fields, type changes or altered pagination.
Connectivity Read definition -
Schema versioning
A strategy for evolving an API or mapping safely: deprecate in place when compatible, version when behaviour changes, and run versions side‑by‑side during migration.
Connectivity Read definition -
Self‑booking tool (SBT)
A corporate booking interface where employees book travel within policy, with approvals and cost‑centre accounting built in.
Corporate Read definition -
Series fare
Contracted fares for a repeated group or series of departures, common in tour operations. Often managed with allotments and stricter release and name deadlines.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Sub‑agent
A downstream agency in a distribution network that buys from a master agency or consolidator under agreed markups, credit limits and branding.
B2B commercial Read definition -
Supplier extranet
A portal for airlines, hotels and ground partners to load and manage their own fares, rates, allotments and stop‑sales without developer involvement.
Connectivity Read definition -
Supplier mapping
The transformation layer that converts each supplier’s schema into the platform’s unified model and back, with versioning and validation.
Connectivity Read definition -
Supplier statement
A periodic statement from a supplier listing invoices, credits and payments. Reconciled against internal orders to confirm balances and trigger payments.
Mid-office Read definition
T
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Ticketing carrier
The airline whose stock the ticket is issued on (plating carrier). Distinct from the operating carrier that flies a segment. Matters for interline, refunds and revenue accounting.
Air & NDC Read definition -
TMC (Travel Management Company)
An agency focused on corporate travel. TMCs combine negotiated rates, policy controls, approval workflows and duty of care for business travellers.
Corporate Read definition -
Travel switch
A connectivity layer that routes and orchestrates requests to multiple suppliers, handling retries, timeouts, idempotency and failover.
Connectivity Read definition
W
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Webhook
An HTTP callback from the platform to a client system to notify about events such as order confirmation, ticket issuance or schedule change.
Connectivity Read definition -
White‑label
Running a product under your own brand, colours and domain. In B2B travel, master agencies often provide white‑label portals to sub‑agents.
B2B commercial Read definition
No terms match this filter.
Questions about a definition?
We’re happy to walk through how these concepts show up in real systems and discuss your use cases.