Industry Architecture Evaluations
Technology & Architecture Comparisons
Objective, data-driven comparisons of distribution protocols, GDS platforms, and travel architectures.
Architecture BenchmarkUpdated 2026-09-28
GDS vs NDC: The Structural Shift in Airline Retailing & Distribution Architecture
A deep technical comparison between legacy EDIFACT GDS distribution and modern IATA NDC XML/JSON retailing, analyzing latency, ancillary merchandising, dynamic pricing, and booking workflow complexity.
Legacy GDS (EDIFACT)
Mainframe-era high-speed transactional network with rigid message formats.
IATA NDC (XML / JSON)
Direct modern retailing pipeline shifting pricing and offer logic to the airline.