Navan has deepened its partnership with Qantas by upgrading to the airline’s invite-only Premium New Distribution Capability connection, a move that signals a new phase in how global corporate travelers access and manage air content. The enhanced integration is designed to deliver sharper fares, richer servicing options, and smoother handling of unused ticket credits, positioning Navan as a leading technology partner for Qantas and raising the bar for modern, NDC-driven business travel programs worldwide.
Upgraded Qantas Connection Marks a Strategic Leap
Navan’s latest enhancement centers on a direct connection to the newest generation of Qantas’s NDC 24.1 API, which powers the carrier’s Premium NDC program. By stepping up from a standard NDC feed to this elevated tier, Navan gains access to what it describes as better pricing than standard NDC, more servicing options, and broader functionality within its own travel and expense platform. For corporate buyers, this translates into more competitive Qantas fares appearing directly in the booking tool employees already use.
The Premium NDC connection is part of a broader distribution overhaul Qantas began rolling out last year, designed to incentivize modern connections and shift away from the limitations of legacy global distribution technology. Within that framework, a select group of partners is invited into the Premium NDC program, giving them access to enriched content and commercial incentives. Navan’s inclusion underscores its growing reputation as a technologically advanced travel management platform that can handle the complexity of direct airline APIs at enterprise scale.
From Qantas’s perspective, the upgraded connection is meant to support a more flexible and personalized experience. Executives at the airline have framed the new model around tailoring fares and ancillaries more precisely, along with dynamic commission opportunities for partners that invest in NDC capabilities. Navan’s move into the Premium NDC tier aligns squarely with that strategy, creating an ecosystem where both the airline and the travel management platform can experiment with richer offers and more granular control of distribution.
What Premium NDC Means for Corporate Travelers
At the front end, travelers and travel arrangers will see the impact of the Qantas Premium NDC integration in the availability of fare options and self-service features within Navan’s interface. The new connection gives Navan access to Qantas fares that the airline positions at more attractive price points than those available through standard NDC channels, helping travel managers deliver savings without compromising on traveler experience. In an era of tight budgets and heightened scrutiny on travel spend, that combination is particularly compelling.
Another tangible benefit is expanded seat-selection capability. Under the upgraded connection, Bronze-tier members of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program can now access seat selection on Qantas-ticketed flights directly within Navan. Historically, lower-tier loyalty members have had limited or inconsistent access to seat choices in corporate channels. Bringing that control into Navan’s booking flow helps align the corporate experience with what travelers might expect when booking leisure trips directly on airline websites.
The integration also addresses a pain point that has long frustrated corporate programs: the handling of unused credits. Through Premium NDC, Navan can now enable the use of Qantas NDC credits inside its platform, simplifying what has often been a manual, opaque process. For travel and finance managers, streamlined credit usage reduces leakage and waste, while for travelers it lowers friction when rebooking trips after changes or cancellations, cutting down on calls to agents or airline support.
Underpinning these visible improvements is a more responsive servicing layer. The upgraded connection is designed to support faster post-booking servicing for Qantas trips on Navan, with change and modification flows that remain consistent with the rest of the platform’s NDC connections. This is especially important for business travelers who need to adjust itineraries at short notice and expect those changes to be handled swiftly and digitally.
NDC as a Cornerstone of Navan’s Global Strategy
The Qantas Premium NDC move does not exist in isolation. Navan has been methodically retooling its distribution backbone over the past several years to emphasize direct NDC connections with key global carriers. The company has rolled out NDC integrations with airlines including Emirates, Iberia, United, American Airlines, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Finnair, Air France, KLM and Lufthansa Group carriers, creating a broad portfolio of modern air content that now accounts for a significant share of bookings on the platform.
In mid-2025, Navan announced the launch of its own direct NDC content aggregation platform and confirmed it had retired GDS-based NDC feeds in favor of direct airline APIs and select aggregator partnerships. That strategic decision followed extensive testing of different technical approaches and was driven by the conclusion that direct connections delivered higher content quality and faster issue resolution. The company’s work in this area has been recognized by industry bodies, including a Travel Seller Excellence Award from Accelya for NDC adoption and collaboration.
For corporate clients, Navan’s NDC investments are more than a technology story. By aggregating richer airline content and avoiding surcharges often attached to legacy channels, the platform aims to unlock lower fares and more comprehensive ancillaries while retaining centralized control and duty of care. Navan’s own research into corporate travel and expense trends has highlighted that a large majority of travel managers now see NDC as a driver of savings and better booking options, reinforcing the business case for these investments.
Elevating Global Travel Standards Through Richer Content
Navan’s upgraded Qantas integration contributes to a broader redefinition of what corporate travelers should expect from a booking experience. Rather than a static list of commoditized fares, the Premium NDC framework supports more dynamic offers, tailored bundles and clear visibility into ancillary services such as seat selection, baggage and fare flexibility. For global organizations with complex travel footprints, this helps ensure that employees in different regions can access a more harmonized and high-quality range of options.
The integration is also a significant development for travel managers tasked with balancing cost control and employee satisfaction. Better-priced fares from Qantas delivered via Premium NDC help reduce average ticket prices, while richer ancillaries and loyalty-related features maintain or even enhance the traveler experience. This combination is central to modern travel policies that emphasize adoption of in-policy tools by making the approved booking channel feel as intuitive and rewarding as consumer platforms.
On an operational level, the ability to more seamlessly manage changes, cancellations and credits on Navan removes friction that historically pushed travelers to bypass corporate tools altogether. When employees can quickly adjust their Qantas travel inside the same interface they use to manage other itineraries and expenses, they are less inclined to book off-platform, which in turn improves data visibility, duty of care coverage and policy compliance for global programs.
The Qantas Premium NDC integration thus becomes a building block in Navan’s effort to raise standards across global corporate travel. By setting expectations for content richness, self-service, and pricing transparency on one major carrier, the company increases the pressure for similar capabilities across its wider airline portfolio, driving industry-wide momentum toward more modern distribution models.
Technology, AI and Complex Trip Management
Navan’s investment in advanced NDC connectivity is closely tied to its broader technology roadmap, including AI and complex itinerary management. In late 2025 the company introduced a revamped multi-city booking engine capable of handling intricate, multi-leg trips that have traditionally required human agent support. That engine draws heavily on NDC and other modern content sources, allowing travelers to combine multiple carriers, fare types and cabin classes within a single, coherent booking flow.
This multi-city system tackles one of the travel industry’s most challenging engineering problems, processing vast combinations of routes and fares while maintaining a clean, consumer-like interface. The integration of NDC content is critical in this context because it ensures that complex itineraries still benefit from the richer fares and servicing capabilities made possible by direct airline connections. As a result, a traveler booking a multi-leg international journey that includes Qantas segments can enjoy the advantages of Premium NDC content without sacrificing the simplicity of a unified booking experience.
Artificial intelligence also plays a growing role in how Navan surfaces and services NDC content. The company continues to evolve its AI assistant, designed to handle a large share of customer interactions, including frequently asked questions and routine servicing tasks. Combining AI with enhanced Qantas servicing via Premium NDC gives travelers a faster resolution path when plans change, while relieving pressure on human agents who can then focus on higher-value or more complex cases.
Looking ahead, Navan has signaled plans to add AI-powered ticketing optimization and contextual guidance to its booking flows. In the context of Premium NDC, such capabilities could help automatically recommend fare combinations or rebooking options that optimize for cost, flexibility or sustainability, making the most of the granular data and control that NDC standards enable.
Implications for Airlines, TMCs and Corporate Buyers
The elevation of Navan’s Qantas connection carries implications that reach beyond the two companies involved. For airlines, it reinforces the viability of segmenting NDC offerings into tiers, rewarding partners that invest in technical depth and customer experience with better commercial terms and richer content. As more carriers experiment with premium NDC programs, travel management companies may face increasing pressure to modernize their distribution stacks or risk losing access to top-tier inventory.
For travel management providers, the Navan Qantas partnership serves as a case study in how direct NDC connections can be operationalized within an end-to-end travel and expense ecosystem. It demonstrates that advanced features like seat selection for specific loyalty tiers, streamlined unused-credit redemption and differentiated fare access can be delivered at scale, provided the underlying technology infrastructure is built to handle modern airline APIs and constant iteration.
Corporate buyers, meanwhile, gain an example of what a next-generation airline relationship can look like when mediated through a modern platform. Instead of choosing between savings and traveler satisfaction, companies are increasingly seeking solutions that deliver both. Navan’s Premium NDC integration with Qantas, layered onto its broader NDC and AI initiatives, illustrates how those goals can align: lower average ticket costs, more personalized choices, and a smoother servicing experience, all within a controlled, policy-compliant environment.
As more organizations evaluate their travel and expense strategies for the coming years, such examples are likely to shape RFPs and vendor selection criteria. Buyers will not only ask whether a partner supports NDC, but what level of integration, fare access and post-booking functionality is truly in place, setting a new benchmark for what qualifies as a modern, global travel standard.
The Road Ahead for Navan and Qantas
While the upgraded Premium NDC connection is already live, its long-term impact will depend on ongoing collaboration between Navan and Qantas. Both parties will need to continuously refine offer design, servicing flows and commercial structures as they gather data on traveler behavior and program performance. Success metrics will likely include adoption rates of Premium NDC fares, utilization of unused credits, traveler satisfaction scores and measurable savings for corporate clients.
For Qantas, the partnership provides a platform to test and scale new pricing and product strategies specifically tailored to corporate travelers accessing content through a modern intermediary. As the airline’s broader distribution model evolves, Navan’s capabilities offer a laboratory for fine-tuning how Premium NDC content is packaged and delivered, including how loyalty benefits, ancillaries and dynamic offers can be surfaced in ways that resonate with business travelers.
For Navan, the integration further entrenches its position at the forefront of NDC innovation and sets expectations for future airline partnerships. Each successful advanced integration strengthens the argument for its direct-connect approach and supports the company’s narrative of providing superior content, greater transparency and more control to enterprises that view travel as a strategic asset.
In combination, these efforts suggest a future in which corporate travelers on Qantas and other major carriers experience a more seamless, personalized and cost-effective journey, orchestrated by platforms that fully embrace NDC and the broader shift toward modern airline retailing. With the Premium NDC integration now in place, Navan and Qantas are signaling that the next chapter of global business travel is already underway.