Job Description

Job Title: Manager - Distribution
Role Summary
The Manager - Distribution is accountable for designing, optimizing, and governing the airline's global distribution strategy across direct and indirect channels. The role drives adoption of NDC, ensures high-quality and accurate content across all channels (direct, OTA, Metasearch, TMCs, GDS), manages distribution cost and performance, and safeguards against fraud and GDS misuse/abuse. You will partner cross-functionally (Revenue Management, Digital, Sales, Loyalty, Finance, Legal, IT) and with external partners (GDSs, aggregators, ATPCO, IATA, PSPs, acquirers) to deliver differentiated, efficient, and secure distribution outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
Channel Strategy & Development

• Develop and execute the global distribution strategy across direct, NDC, GDS, OTA, metasearch, corporate/TMC, and agency channels.
• Identify, onboard, and scale priority partners (aggregators, resellers, tech providers) to expand reach and optimize channel mix.
• Enhance the efficacy of the existing channels so that the utilization of these channels is at par with the best in the industry
• Create new distribution channels and devise strategies for adaption

Global Content Distribution & Quality

• Own end-to-end content governance: fare filing, ancillaries, branded fares, bundles, rich content (images, attributes), and offer/ordering accuracy across channels.
• Establish robust monitoring of content accuracy, timeliness, and completeness, with automated QA and exception handling.

NDC Adoption & API-Based Distribution

• Lead NDC roadmap, versioning, and partner migration; champion offer/Order API capabilities (shopping, pricing, servicing).
• Manage technical and operational integration with aggregators, resellers, and corporate platforms; oversee certification and conformance.
• Drive continuous improvement in NDC features (ancillaries, bundles, servicing, disruption handling, settlement) and developer experience.

Distribution Cost & Performance Management

• Model and manage distribution cost (GDS fees, third-party/aggregator costs, payment fees, chargebacks, fraud), optimizing channel profitability.
• Define KPIs and dashboards for conversion, yield, attach rates, servicing costs, error rates, latency, and partner performance.

Risk, Fraud & GDS Abuse Control

• Implement controls and monitoring for fraud (card testing, account takeover, synthetic identities, friendly fraud) across channels.
• Monitor and mitigate GDS misuse/abuse (speculative/ghost bookings, churn, passive segments, ADM-driven behaviors).

Standards, Compliance & Partner Governance

• Ensure compliance with global distribution standards (IATA NDC/ONE Order, Edifact phasing, ATPCO schemas, BSP/ARC rules).
• Govern partner SLAs (availability, accuracy, servicing) and technical reliability (latency, uptime, error budgets).
• Maintain up-to-date documentation, playbooks, and change-management processes for releases and schema changes.

Analytics, Insights & Reporting

• Build actionable insights from distribution data: demand signals, channel mix, leakage, fare integrity, attach rates, fraud patterns.
• Provide regular performance reviews and recommendations to executive stakeholders; translate analytics into commercial actions.
• Champion data quality and lineage; ensure BI accuracy and trusted metrics across teams.

Required Qualifications

• 10 plus years in airline/GDS/aggregator/OTA/TMC distribution, with progressively responsible roles.
• Strong expertise in API-based distribution and IATA NDC (offer/Order APIs, schemas, conformance, servicing workflows).
• Hands-on experience with GDS (Edifact, ticketing/servicing flows, ADM/ACM mechanisms) and GDS commercial constructs.
• Knowledge of ATPCO fare filing, branded fares/ancillaries, and rich content distribution.
• Solid understanding of payments (PSPs, tokenization, 3DS, fraud tooling, risk scoring, chargeback management).
• Proficiency in data analytics (SQL/BI tools), building dashboards, and interpreting KPIs for decision-making.
• Experience managing distribution cost, partner SLAs, and commercial agreements.
• Strong stakeholder management, vendor governance, and cross-functional leadership.

Skills Required