Originally Posted by
seawolf
People don't like change especially if no benefit for them and cost effort to adopt. As far as I can tell, NDC benefit airlines more than agencies.
As to why AA don't take the UA approach, it seems to me agencies are not voluntary adopting because of no benefit/no ROI; history has proven that if airlines don't provide a benefit and/or disincentive.
AA is taking the initiative by providing disincentive to not adopt. Other airlines like UA know if AA is successful at getting agencies to make the changes required to get onto NDC, they don't need to do anything for adoption because the change management effort has already taken place. Essentially UA is letting AA play the bad cop in this and stand to gain NDC adoption without pissing off travel agents.
yes I am speculating.
I think the piece that's missing (from my own experience as an agent) is that AA has made it more difficult to work with them. Sure, NDC is coming and they may have felt the only way to get agencies on-board is to force the change. But why not provide additional resources, additional messaging to support that change? This whole nonsense about "preferred agencies" and mileage earning is a perfect example of that. They wield a big stick at agencies [if you're not preferred, then no AA miles on the tickets you issue], but then can't provide us with any details about how we'd qualify, what our current metrics are, etc. I have it on pretty good authority that they haven't figured it out, which is why they've had to delay the rollout.
It's not a friendly approach at all. Change is inevitable and often a bit uncomfortable. But there's an additional layer to AA's approach that goes beyond that.