Building the Future
A package of work developed under the IATA Distribution Advisory Council has the objective to build a new Retailer - Supplier Framework enabling carriers to do business with new interline and intermodal partners that cannot support legacy processes. This includes the development of the Standard Retailer and Supplier Interline Agreement (SRSIA), complemented by Standards based around Offer & Order concepts and real-time request and response data exchange.
This first version of the SRSIA developed by the IATA Interline Group and adopted by the Passenger Standards Conference in 2021 will become effective as of June 1st, 2022. More information on this new template agreement is available in the IATA SRSIA briefing paper.
Retailers and Suppliers
The Standard Retailer and Supplier Interline Agreement seeks to move away from ticketing concepts of validating carrier and participating carrier, and away from scheduling concepts or marketing and operating carrier concepts. The framework introduces the concept of a Retailer and a Supplier. The Retailer initiates a relationship with a customer at the time of the customer making a shopping request, and provides products and services to a customer either directly or by engaging suppliers. These concepts are generic, and better support an open framework where the products and services of many different suppliers can be combined into an offer for a customer.
SRSIA and/or MITA?
SRSIA will exist in parallel with the existing Multilateral Interline Traffic Agreement (MITA).
IATA member ailrines may wish to form an interline relationship under the MITA, or under the SRSIA, or under any other bilateral agreement, just as they do today.