Next Generation Airline Data Exchange Simulator (NGADS)
A high-level diagram of NGADS version 1
Online travel agents (OTAs) such as Expedia and Booking.com, have become our preferred channel to find the best deals in air travel and book future trips. These third-party sellers may generate up to 70 percent of an Airline’s ticket sales, but at the same time, airlines not only lose control over the offer construction but might also need to pay a fee to advertise their products on the OTA platform. Hence, now more than ever airlines are looking for the agility and flexibility to construct the offers for OTAs and sell more content. A new cutting-edge technology developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) known as NDC (New Distribution Capability) is set up to become the next-generation solution to enhance the capability of data exchange between airlines and OTAs.
The goal of this project is to develop an open source web-based live simulator that will serve as a testing environment to experiment and validate on IATA’s NDC standard. NGADS is a collaboration between the grad students and faculty at the AIRLAB and undergraduate students taking the Senior Project course (CIS 4911). Senior Project is a required course for undergraduate students on the Computer Science track, taken during the last semester of their senior year. It is an opportunity for students to cultivate original ideas, advanced designs, and innovative solutions for industry and society problems. Students must solve challenges posed by research faculty and their industrial partners, and at the end of the semester demonstrate their practical solutions. We designed NGADS as a multi-semester project. This project is composed of two main goals, (1) build a primitive OTA and set up an NDC connection between a simulated travel agent and an airline and (2) generate the synthetic data necessary to display in the primitive OTA. Our vision is for the NGADS platform to eventually become an essential training tool for airlines to explore the capabilities provided by NDC.
At the Senior Project Showcase, attendees will have the opportunity to see proof-of-concept system demo and interact with talented students who are about to graduate. Discover great talent and learn how our students are solving difficult problems. This interactive event provides opportunities to learn about new system development techniques and to network with FIU faculty, staff, and students along with local industry executives, engineers, and recruiters.
Coming end of Spring 2019: Github Page
A planned architectural diagram for NGADS version 2
Save the date!
Are you interested in knowing some more details of these projects and seeing some live demonstrations?
Come join us at the: Spring 2019 – Senior Design Project Showcase
