The airline and travel industry has experienced a significant shift in how airlines sell fares and package their products. This “quiet revolution” officially landed in Colombo, Sri Lanka on January 22, 2026 with the introduction of Verteil Technologies and Mack Air serving as their General Sales Agent (GSA). Many airline and agency executives attended the event at the JAIC Hilton Colombo to witness this technological shift.
Verteil’s position is that they are an “NDC-first” technology provider where they aggregate New Distribution Capability (NDC) feeds to provide travel sellers with more comprehensive, dynamic content from the airlines they represent (real-time bundled fares, pay-as-you-go ancillary services, and post-booking servicing that has historically been only available through an airline website). NDC enables carriers to provide their customers with multiple offers by creating different bundles of products and services associated with a specific seat throughout the shopping experience instead of the one-size-fits-all fares that are available through legacy global distribution systems. Verteil’s portal now enables travel agents to connect with dozens of carriers and obtain all of this valuable content from one user interface.
Why is this important to Sri Lanka? The island’s tourism and travel industry have rebounded and are growing rapidly post-pandemic due to the significant number of international arrivals (expected to reach more than 8 million by 2024). As a result, there is a significant amount of pent-up demand for more efficient retailing and flexible booking experiences for travel agents and tour operators as they package/price ancillaries and upsell options in the future through the use of real-time pricing — eliminating the need for manual work-arounds.
Mack Air will not just be providing administrative support but rather acting as a long-time established local GSA (General Sales Agent) and is part of the John Keells Group, an aviation company, with extensive aviation expertise. In addition, Mack Air will be providing the local training, commercial onboarding, and customer support required to enable Verteil (an NDC technology provider) to facilitate the adoption of NDC across Sri Lanka’s travel agent network, which Shaminda Fernando (CEO) has alluded to as being a new way to distribute local airlines in an effective manner.
The New Distribution Capability (NDC) is not a new concept. It was first introduced in 2012 by IATA and has historically progressed toward an efficient means to allow airlines to take back control over their retail operations and give travel sellers the ability to provide personalized travel options for their customers. For travel agents, they will be able to shop for and sell product options that will look like what their customers will see on the airline’s consumer-facing website; however, agents will now be able to see these options in their agency’s GDS, an OTA or their client’s’ corporate booking tool.
The areas to study going forward are adoption, orchestration and creation of packaging. While technology providers like Verteil can simplify the “plumbing” of technology integration, the level of commercial and operational orchestration (e.g., reconciliation processes, issuance of tickets and customer services) will be significant factors in determining the winners coming out of this transition. If the travel industry in Sri Lanka embraces NDC, there will be immediate benefits, which would include faster sales of ancillary products, clearer images of outbound packages for visitors into the country, and fewer manual reconciling efforts to process multi-carrier ticketing. In addition, airlines flying into Colombo will have a means to market their premium ancillary products and offer levels of service specifically targeted to the market.
Initially, passengers may barely notice changes in their travels as a result of improved technological capabilities for third-party retailing. However, gradual improvements in technology could ultimately change air travel economics for the island of Sri Lanka. As an island that is currently attempting to recover from a downturn and expand its tourism sector, the retailing technology improvements that are currently being made represent a new way for the island to increase ancillary revenue, increase choice for passengers, and allow smaller travel agencies to compete with larger agencies based on product offering versus price.
Verteil’s recent debut in Colombo, which will be managed locally by Mack Air, may be particularly interesting because it represents both a microcosm of the global trend toward improved airline-controlled retailing and a local test of whether improved distribution technology for small and medium travel agencies can positively affect Sri Lanka’s tourism recovery in terms of long-term growth rates.
