Why Worldia chose Duffel: airline coverage, economics, and technical capabilities
Worldia is a platform for building custom travel itineraries. It's a one-stop shop to simplify the way travellers explore and book flights, transfers, accommodation, car rentals, and even experiences.
Travel customers can book directly on Worldia’s platform and travel agencies can also leverage the white-label solution – there are already thousands of travel agencies using Worldia across Europe today.
Evaluating flight API providers for NDC content
Worldia wanted to keep improving the trip planning experience. Earlier this year, they started considering how to integrate New Distribution Capability (NDC) into their platform to give customers new content and capabilities.
When evaluating potential partnerships, they used three main criteria:
- Airline coverage
- Economics
- Technical capabilities
Worldia looked at their data on airline coverage and identified the top 20 airlines based on the number of flight bookings. They then compared that list of airlines to the coverage available with flight API providers offering access to NDC content.
From an economics lens, they were looking for the right long-term partnership with pricing that worked with their current business model and future growth.
Finally, from a technical perspective, Worldia wanted a partner that was aligned with their vision for travel both today and for the future. They wanted to build a great flight experience and they needed the flight API provider to meet their needs. Worldia also wanted to feel like a partner and not just a customer – they wanted their concerns heard and a support team available to help.
Each of the criteria was equally important – Worldia was looking for an API that blended all three together. David Parlange, COO of Worldia, described their ideal partner as ‘like taking a mixer, putting in the criteria, shaking it up, and pouring it out.’
Choosing Duffel as the preferred flight API
David met Steve Domin, co-founder and CEO of Duffel, a few years ago through a mutual connection. At the time, Duffel was still in stealth mode with a strong vision and a product in development pre-launch. At the time, Worldia was not ready to focus on NDC implementation.
Fast forward a few years, NDC was more widely available from airlines and Worldia was growing as a business.
So, when David and the team at Worldia started to evaluate flight APIs against their criteria, Duffel naturally made the list. From there, Duffel ticked all the boxes: strong airline coverage, economics that made sense and scaled, and comprehensive developer documentation and tools.
The choice was made, Duffel's Flights API was the preferred provider for flight content. The next step... Worldia needed to complete onboarding and learn how to integrate with an NDC airline.
‘The product is simple and user-friendly. Getting started was also really easy for 2 reasons:
1. Airline integration was easy. Documentation was clear on how to integrate, the process was straight-forward, and the team was available to answer any questions. In a short period of time we already had access to 10 airlines.
2. The use of common tools, especially Slack. Easy communication is really important and our whole team could have access to the shared channel - it felt like we had a dedicated team of support.”
David Parlange, co-founder and COO of Worldia
What’s next for Worldia and Duffel?
Worldia’s vision is for travellers and travel agencies to easily book and manage any trip on their own. Worldia wants to be the support system with the best travel booking experience so their customers can do whatever they need.
Together, Duffel and Worldia are looking ahead to opportunities around complete service and ancillary offerings – at the time of booking and after booking – including luggage, seat selection, select fares, and more.
“We are thrilled to partner with Worldia after discussing the possibility for some time. It’s great to align with a company who has a similar vision and wants to provide the best flight booking experience possible. With the launch of new airlines monthly, it’s exciting to see how quickly Worldia can increase their coverage - such as getting access to easyJet flights the same day we go live. We look forward to supporting and empowering more businesses by providing an easy to use platform and continuously adding new airlines and features each month.”
Steve Domin, co-founder and CEO of Duffel
Build your own travel experience with our Flights API
Duffel is your complete toolkit for selling flights online. You can get started quickly as an authorised travel seller and access content from hundreds of airlines, including dozens of NDC airlines, using our industry accreditation and airline ticketing authority.
You can also use comprehensive developer documentation, client libraries, and pre-built user interface components to make building great experiences easier for your engineering team.