New data from ARC and Accelya shows NDC has moved from pilot to production across agency and managed travel, with SAP Concur recording its millionth NDC booking in Q1 2026.
New Distribution Capability has reached a statistical milestone in agency distribution. NDC transactions accounted for 21.2% of total ARC-settled transactions in December 2025, according to data released Tuesday, alongside a new wave of participants joining Accelya’s NDC FastTrack initiative. More than one in every five agency bookings processed through ARC now flows via NDC.
21.2%
NDC share of ARC-settled transactions, Dec 2025
+168%
Corporate NDC bookings year over year, Q4 2025
1M+
NDC bookings in SAP Concur Travel, Q1 2026
The figures come as ARC, Navan, Travelfusion and SAP Concur confirmed participation in NDC FastTrack, a cross-industry forum supported by Accelya focused on resolving the operational and technical friction associated with scaling NDC in live environments. The program already includes American Express Global Business Travel, BCD Travel, CTM, FCM Travel, Fox World Travel, Sabre, Amadeus and Travelport.
The corporate travel segment is where momentum is most visible. Accelya platform data shows GDS-distributed NDC volumes rose 162% year over year in Q4 2025, tracking alongside the increase in corporate bookings. SAP Concur President Charlie Sultan said the platform recorded its millionth NDC booking in Q1 2026 and expects to reach two million within five months at the current pace, highlighting how quickly managed travel is absorbing NDC content.
“As NDC usage increases in managed travel, ensuring consistent post-booking processes and data integrity across systems becomes critical to maintaining trust with corporate customers.”
Charlie Sultan, President, Concur Travel
From access to execution
The shift in language across participant statements is telling. NDC FastTrack’s current workstreams, Anchored Search, which introduces a two-step shopping workflow to improve result consistency, and EMD Exchange, which enables agencies to reuse and exchange EMDs within the NDC workflow, are not about connecting to NDC, but about making it work reliably at scale. The industry has moved from debating whether NDC can scale to ensuring it remains stable as it does.
“From a TMC perspective, NDC has to function within real-world agency workflows. The practical details, exchanges, refunds, data consistency, are what determine whether NDC becomes routine in day-to-day operations.”
Ian Fette, VP Engineering, Navan
An in-person working session is scheduled for May in Miami, where participants will continue technical discussions on current workstreams.
Emerging markets
The corporate NDC growth story playing out in North America and Europe carries direct implications for carriers and travel sellers in markets where NDC penetration remains low and GDS dependency is still high. Ethiopian Airlines, live on both Accelya FLX Select and ARC Direct Connect, and Kenya Airways, which went live on Amadeus NDC earlier this year, are operating within the same distribution infrastructure now generating these volumes. However, the broader agency ecosystem in Africa and other emerging markets has yet to absorb NDC at comparable depth.
As operational maturity around servicing, data consistency and workflow stability becomes standard in high-volume markets, the gap with emerging distribution ecosystems becomes a more tangible variable for airlines, TMCs and technology providers to track. The infrastructure is maturing faster than adoption in the markets that arguably need it most.
