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Glossary for the airline industry

From A-Z, this glossary covers definitions and explanations for common airline industry terminology.

national

A person who has citizenship of a given country, either by birth or naturalization. Also called citizen.

NDC

New Distribution Capability.

NDC Exchange

An industry-owned solution that serves as a neutral hub to connect airlines with sellers, while performing real-time message translation that supports many industry standards and versions.

negotiated fares

Negotiated fares are private fares that are not publicly displayed and have limited distribution as designated by the fare owner. A key distinction between negotiated fares and other private fares is that ATPCO will identify negotiated fares explicitly and indicate the type of fare amounts (Net or Selling) held in the file. ATPCO maintains many private fares that do not fall within the Negotiated Fares process. A data owner can have private fares that are both negotiated and non-negotiated.

NET

Negotiated Ticketing Agreement.

Net fare amount

The amount a carrier is willing to accept from the agency (or consolidator) for a negotiated fare; that is, the amount that is remitted to the carrier by the agent through ARC/BSP after deduction of commission.

Net net

The amount due to the airline for a passenger fare after payment of all commissions and incentives.

Net submit amount

The amount that is remitted to the carrier by the agent through ARC/BSP after deduction of commission.

New Distribution Capability

An IATA-established standard that enables the travel industry to transform the way airline products are distributed to the market.

Next Generation Storefront™

(NGS) A set of data standards that enable distribution channels to better present, sort, and find the airline products and services consumers are looking for. 

non-concurring

When a carrier does not permit any other carrier to instruct or enter RBD data on their behalf for secondary transportation. The non-concurring carrier chooses to publish RBD data in its own Record 6 Convention 1 for secondary sectors where they are the transporting carrier. ATPCO assumes that all carriers are non-concurring unless the carrier provides a concurrence agreement to ATPCO.

non-directional fare

Fares that are published without a directional indicator (either on the fare record or footnote). Non-directional fares are usually domestic US/CA fares.

non-filed

1. The status of provisions in a batch that have not yet been distributed through the subscription process.

2. A tariff that is processed through GFS, but is not presented to any government as an official government filing.

nonstop flights

A service of transportation on the same flight number without any intermediate stops (stops includes gauge and funnel flights).

notification

Formerly called bulletins, a primary method of communication between ATPCO and customers. Notifications are posted on the Customer Center website and participants may elect to receive notifications by email.

NUC

Neutral unit of construction. NUC is a common way to express fares around the world that will be established in the hundreds of different currencies of the countries of origin. It has replaced IATA's fare construction unit (FCU).